On the road towards parity: Introducing two initiatives at ETH Zurich

The Gender Gap in STEM: Progress and Persistent Challenges

In 2024, 34% of all Bachelor¡¯s students at ETH Zurich were women. While for some departments, more women than men start a Bachelor's degree (i.e. D-HEST with 62% or D-USYS with 60%), in general, women are still underrepresented on this level. This trend continues at all academic levels of ETH.

The underrepresentation of women in math-intensive STEM fields can be explained with numerous factors. One such factor is the concept of belonging uncertainty, describing negative self-perceptions of individuals such as ¡®people like me do not belong here¡¯.¹
In a survey conducted at ETH Zurich, female Bachelor¡¯s students across several STEM departments reported higher levels of belonging uncertainty than male students did.² The feeling of belonging uncertainty is closely intertwined with ¡°students¡¯ persistence, well-being, and academic achievement in STEM subjects¡±.³  Data further shows differences between female and male students on psychometric variables such as perceived stress, threat and uncertainty, which are higher in female students.⁴

A study conducted by the project EQUATES (ETH Zurich, 2016 to 2018) also found gender differences in Bachelor¡¯s students prior knowledge, which influence the success rate at the so-called First Year Examination (German: Basispr¨¹fung). These exams are taken in one or two blocks and complete the first year of the Bachelor¡¯s studies at ETH Zurich. They mark a crucial moment for Bachelor¡¯s students, as this exam session determines whether their studies at ETH Zurich can continue.

The EQUATES study further shows that female students in traditionally male-dominated departments such as mathematics, engineering, physics, and computer science tend to achieve lower grades and have higher failure rates in their First Year Examinations.
The study suggests that ¡°the effect of gender on grades is fully mediated by prior knowledge, yet gender does explain additional variance beyond prior knowledge when examining perceived stress, outcome expectations, perceived threat and detrimental attributions¡±.⁵ The authors recommend that students in general, and female students in particular, would benefit from a support program to bridge knowledge gaps.⁶

The cited studies cover data from 2009 to 2018, and those students thus have long since graduated. In the following, an interview with three current Bachelor¡¯s students introducing their initiative and insights from the project ¡®Focus Groups¡¯ shows that the topic continues to resonate with today¡¯s students, and discusses how they are actively engaging with it.

Initiative 1: Exploring the role of gender in the success rates of the first year exams

Philipp Wagner, Hamide Koch and Sergey Ermakov are part of the female association Phi:male. Currently pursuing Bachelor's degrees in Physics, they have begun to explore how gender-related challenges affect the structure and experience of the First Year Examinations (German: Basispr¨¹fung).

How did you get interested into the topic of gender in the context of the First Year Examinations?

Based on our experience, female students in our cohort achieved lower results than their male counterparts in the first year. To investigate this further, we requested data on the First Year Examinations from the department. Unfortunately, our concerns were confirmed - almost every year, a higher proportion of women failed the examinations compared to men.

So, it was helpful to get those numbers to show that there really seems to be an issue to solve. Besides those statistics, you have also started to conduct interviews with students?
Yes, we started these interviews in parallel with the examination of statistics. We wanted to get a more personal view on the matter from both women and men. The student interviews are publicly available online in our student newspaper and on the Phi:male Instagram. While the 'Leaky Pipeline' phenomenon is often associated with later career stages, our interviews challenge this notion by highlighting that women are already leaving within the first few years of their studies.
In any case, perspectives of different generations will help in understanding what the causes of the ¡®Leaky Pipeline¡¯ phenomenon are. As soon as we find the time, we will work on more interviews with women and men in later career stages.

In your experience, what could be done to better support female students in navigating their studies?
From what we observed, the study environment is a key factor. Various studies, along with our interviews and personal experiences, suggest that women are more likely to underestimate their own intelligence and brilliance, which in turn affects their success in mathematics and physics. By creating a more  inclusive and diverse work environment, a feeling of comfort could encourage female students¡¯ trust in their own capabilities. In our opinion, an inclusive work environment also means highlighting female role models and hearing their stories¡­ This is why the coffee lectures by Phi:male are so great!

In the long term, it will become necessary for women to be more equally represented, starting from Bachelor's students all the way up to professors. Only then will women truly be able to feel comfortable in their environment.

What are your next steps to address this issue?
These statistics and interviews were a call to action for us! We will use both quantitative observations through statistics and the personal experiences from the interviews to find solutions for reducing the systematic disadvantages for women in their First Year Examinations. Various studies indicate that multiple-choice questions systematically disadvantage women. Therefore, we propose limiting multiple-choice questions at ETH Zurich to single-choice formats without penalty points. Additionally, based on our personal experiences and insights from interviews, we have observed that a clearly communicated exam structure would be particularly beneficial for female students. Of course, more ideas are yet to come through further analysis. We will communicate these findings to university politics representatives to initiate change.

Initiative 2: Knowledge building in an inclusive learning environment

Alongside the empirical research, students¡¯ experiences and inquiries thus show the interplay between sense of belonging, self-perception, and academic success. When Bachelor¡¯s students begin their studies at ETH Zurich, they bring with them varying experiences, prior knowledge, skill sets, and uneven levels of self-assessed competence. This variability can prevent students with lower sense of belonging or self-esteem from asking questions, for example during exercise classes. How can teachers take this heterogeneity into account and ensure that as many students as possible pass their exams successfully?

This is where Focus Groups come into play, a special format of exercise classes for students who do not feel entirely comfortable in the subject, for example due to little prior knowledge in comparison to other students in the course. The goal of those classes is to mitigate differences in prior knowledge of the students in order to prepare them in the best possible way for their further studies.
A welcome effect of the environment created in the Focus Group is that students feel a sense of belonging and are freer to ask their questions. Teaching assistants structure their lessons accordingly and take more time to carefully convey the basics. This approach benefits students of underrepresented groups, such as women in traditionally male-dominated fields, students with neurodivergence, or first-generation students.⁷

At ETH Zurich, Focus Groups were established as a pilot in 2021 with two groups in the Physics I lecture of the first year in Mathematics and Physics. The pilot was successful: 79.6% of the focus group participants passed the exam, compared to 74.6% in the entire cohort.
The proportion of women in the focus groups was high with 52.5%. Since then, the ¡°AG Fokusgruppen¡± of VSETH is active in the promotion of the concept, with the goal that Focus Groups are offered for as many lectures as possible. As the creation of a trustful learning environment is highly dependent on the teaching assistants, VSETH together with external page MeWell offers a workshop for teaching assistants of Focus Groups.⁸ In the workshop, teaching assistants are introduced to the concept and sensibilized for topics such as neurodiversity.
By 2024, Focus Groups have become established, with some departments giving official recommendations to offer them. In total, students could attend Focus Groups for 22 lectures. The goal is to make the concept better known and increase the offer of Focus Groups for first year students; and perhaps in the future to other study levels.

The projects presented here are two examples among numerous ongoing initiatives working toward a more inclusive ETH Zurich. To strengthen such efforts, deepen the collaboration across departments and internal administrative bodies, and formalize the DEI commitment of ETH Zurich, the ¡®Strategic Framework for Diversity, Equality and Inclusion at ETH¡¯ will come into effect this year.
Like the initiatives discussed here, the framework means to contribute to an ETH community where every student, teacher, researcher, employee, and apprentice feels a sense of belonging, dares to ask both simple and complex questions, and can excel in their field of work and study.