Investigating gender bias in first year physics examinations

Abstract The short answer section of the final attainment test for the Advanced Physics I course at the University of Newcastle, Australia was investigated for performance bias based on gender. No overall gender bias was discovered, however there was a small to medium bias for the thermal physics topic. No other topics showed any significant difference by gender. A categorization schema for short answer exam questions was developed and revealed a correlation that if questions contain a majority of categories from the schema then no bias will be observed. Bias observed in the Thermal physics topic may be due to a combination of word density and low visual language.