LISA: OK, Greg, so I finally managed to read the article you mentioned — the one about the study on gender in physics.

丽莎：Greg，我终于看完了你提到过的那篇文章，就是那篇关于研究物理学系的性别差异的文章。

GREG: About the study of college students done by Akira Miyake and his team?

格雷格：那篇Akira Miyake的团队研究大学生的文章？

Yeah. I was interested that the researchers were actually a mix of psychologists and physicists.

这些研究人员中实际上既有心理学家又有物理学家，这一点让我很感兴趣。

That's an unusual combination.

这种组合可不常见。

LISA: Yeah. I got a little confused at first about which students the study was based on.

丽莎：对。我一开始还有点弄不清楚，这项研究是针对哪些学生进行的。

They weren't actually majoring in physics - they were majoring in what's known as the STEM disciplines.

他们并不真的都是物理学专业的学生，他们的专业被称为STEM学科。

That's science, technology, engineering and ...

里面包含了科学、技术、工程和……

GREG: ... and math.

格雷格：……数学。

Yes, but they were all doing physics courses as part of their studies.

对，但是他们的一部分专业课都包括了物理学的课程。

LISA: That's correct.

丽莎：没错。

So as I understood it, Miyake and co started from the fact that women are underrepresented in introductory physics courses at college, and also that on average, the women who do enrol on these courses perform more poorly than the men.

从我理解的来看，Miyake团队是以女学生在物理入门课程中出席率不足这一事实作为切入点的，而且那些选择了物理课程的女学生平均成绩也要比男学生差一些。

No one really knows why this is the case.

没人知道为什么会出现这种情况。

GREG: Yeah. But what the researchers wanted to find out was basically what they could do about the relatively low level of the women's results.

格雷格：对，但是这些研究人员基本上只是想要弄清楚他们能做些什么，来改善这种女生成绩相对较低的情况。

But in order to find a solution they needed to find out more about the nature of the problem.

但是为了找到解决方法，他们需要更深入地探究这一问题的本质。

LISA: Right - now let's see if I can remember ... it was that in the physics class, the female students thought the male students all assumed that women weren't any good at physics ... was that it?

丽莎：没错，看我记的对不对……在物理专业的班级中，女学生认为班上的男学生一致觉得她们根本不懂物理，对不对？

And they thought that the men expected them to get poor results in their tests.

而且她们还觉得男生希望她们在考试中取得不好的成绩。

GREG: That's what the women thought, and that made them nervous, so they did get poor results.

格雷格：这只是她们自己以为而已，不过这种想法使她们紧张不安，最终成绩不理想。

But actually they were wrong ... No one was making any assumptions about the female students at all.

但她们是错的，根本没人在对女学生做任何猜想。

LISA: Anyway, what Miyake's team did was quite simple - getting the students to do some writing before they went into the physics class.

丽莎：不管怎样，Miyake团队做的事情非常简单，他们让学生们在进入物理课教室之前，先写了一些东西。

What did they call it?

他们管这个叫什么来着？

GREG: Values-affirmation - they had to write an essay focusing on things that were significant to them, not particularly to do with the subject they were studying, but more general things like music or people who mattered to them.

格雷格：价值观认定。学生们要以对他们来说很重要的事情为题写一篇文章，不用特地选择和他们所学科目相关的话题，更多的是像音乐或者对他们很重要的人这类更平常的话题。

LISA: Right. So the idea of doing the writing is that this gets the students thinking in a positive way.

丽莎：对的。写这篇文章的想法是让学生以一种积极的方式思考。

GREG: And putting these thoughts into words can relax them and help them overcome the psychological factors that lead to poor performance.

格雷格：而且把这些想法转换成文字，会让他们放松并帮助他们克服导致成绩不佳的心理障碍。

Yeah. But what the researchers in the study hadn't expected was that this one activity raised the women's physics grades from the C to the B range.

嗯。但是让研究人员大感意外的是，这样一个简单的举动竟然使女生的物理成绩从C提高到了B。

LISA: A huge change.

丽莎：成绩提高幅度很大啊。

Pity it wasn't to an A, but still!

虽然很遗憾没有提高到A，但是也不错了！

No, but it does suggest that the women were seriously underperforming beforehand, in comparison with the men.

不过这确实证明女学生与男学生相比，在考试之前就严重表现不佳。

GREG: Yes. Mind you, Miyake's article left out a lot of details.

格雷格：对。提醒你一下，Miyake的文章中还省略了很多细节。

Like, did the students do the writing just once, or several times?

比如，这些学生只写了一次文章，还是好几次呢？

And had they been told why they were doing the writing?

还有，他们有没有告诉过这些学生为什么要写这篇文章？

That might have affected the results.

这可能会影响考试成绩的。

LISA: You mean, if they know the researchers thought it might help them to improve, then they'd just try to fulfil that expectation?

丽莎：你的意思是说，如果学生知道研究人员认为这个方法也许能帮助他们提高成绩的话，他们就会努力达到这个期望？

GREG: Exactly.

格雷格：没错。

GREG: So anyway, I thought for our project we could do a similar study, but investigate whether it really was the writing activity that had that result.

总之，我觉得我们在自己的项目中也可以做个相似的研究，不过我们要调查的是，是否真的是这个写作环节导致的那个结果。

LISA: OK. So we could ask them to do a writing task about something completely different ... something more factual?

丽莎：好的。我们可以叫他们以某个完全不同的事情，某个更加真实的事情为题写一篇文章？

Like a general knowledge topic.

比如以常识为题。

GREG: Maybe ... or we could have half the students doing a writing task and half doing something else, like an oral task.

格雷格：也许……我们可以让一半学生完成写作任务，另一半做点别的事情，比如口头任务。

LISA: Or even, half do the same writing task as in the original research and half do a factual writing task.

丽莎：再或者，我们可以让一半学生做和原本研究中同样的写作任务，剩下的一半以真实事情为题写一篇文章。

Then we'd see if it really is the topic that made the difference, or something else.

这样我们就能知道是否真的是那个话题导致的成绩差异，还是其他事情。

GREG: That's it. Good.

格雷格：就是这样。太棒了。

So at our meeting with the supervisor on Monday we can tell him we've decided on our project.

那我们星期一和导师见面的时候，就可以跟他说我们已经决定好做什么课题了。

We should have our aims ready by then.

在那之前我们应该把目标确定好。

I suppose we need to read the original study - the article's just a summary.

我想我们需要把原本的研究看一遍，那篇文章只是个总结。

LISA: And there was another article I read, by Smolinsky.

丽莎：我还读到过另一篇文章，是Smolinsky写的。

It was about her research on how women and men perform in mixed teams in class, compared with single-sex teams and on their own.

这篇文章研究的是，和在单一性别小组以及自己独自学习时的表现相比，女生和男生在班上的混合性别小组的表现有什么不同。

GREG: Let me guess ... the women were better at teamwork.

格雷格：让我猜猜……女生在团队合作时表现更好。

LISA: That's what I expected, but actually the men and the women got the same results whether they were working in teams or on their own.

丽莎：我也是这么想的，但是事实是，男生和女生无论是在团队合作还是独自一人时，表现都是一样的。

But I guess it's not that relevant to us.

不过我想这个和我们的课题没什么关系。

GREG: What worries me anyway is how we're going to get everything done in the time.

格雷格：我真正担心的是，要如何按时完成所有的事情。

LISA: We'll be OK now we know what we're doing.

丽莎：现在我们已经知道要做什么了就没问题了。

Though I'm not clear how we assess whether the students in our experiment actually make any progress or not ...

不过我不是很清楚要怎么知道参与我们实验的学生是否真的取得了进步……

GREG: No. We may need some advice on that.

格雷格：是的。我们在这个问题上也许需要一些建议。

The main thing's to make sure we have the right size sample, not too big or too small.

主要的事情是，我们要确保试样规模正确，不能太大，也不能太小。

LISA: That shouldn't be difficult.

丽莎：这应该不难。

Right, what do we need to do next?

那我们接下来需要做什么呢？

We could have a look at the time table for the science classes ... or perhaps we should just make an appointment to see one of the science professors.

我们可以看看科学系班级的课程表，或者我们也许应该跟一位科学系教授约个时间见一面。

That'd be better.

这样也许更好。

GREG: Great. And we could even get to observe one of the classes.

格雷格：很好。这样也许还有机会观察其中一个班级。

LISA: What for?

丽莎：观察什么？

GREG: Well ... OK maybe let's just go with your idea. Right, well ...

格雷格：嗯……好吧，也许我们还是直接按照你的想法来吧。