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Girls are more likely to drop out of As/A2 Physics...

... even though on average they get better grades than boys.

Why do you think this is happening?

I think that around AS, those girls decide that they don't want to study Physics or Engineering at university (remember, it's UCAS preparation time, so they start thinking more seriously about careers). So they don't need Physics A2, and therefore drop it in favour of some other subject that they also like and that is more relevant for what they want to do. Plenty of boys drop Physics after AS for the same reason, but a higher proportion of boys is considering Engineering as a career so a higher proportion of boys keeps Physics to A2 just in case.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 2

bluebeetle

Interesting, the exact opposite happened at my school, most boys dropped it and most girls stayed on (then again, more girls were on the AS course anyway). I'd probably have to agree with the above poster, as I'm pretty sure the reason most girls in my school stayed on was that my school really encourages girls to go into STEM, and especially engineering.