Reports show that females are underrepresented in physics, and their average scores are lower than males. This proposal is targeted towards improving the performance of female students studying physics. Two different pedagogical approaches in teaching introductory level physics will be compared: the lecture-based method, enhanced with multimedia, and the active learning laboratories based on the Physics Suite. We analyze which method is more efficient in fostering the success of female students. The expected benefit of this project is that it will improve the understanding on how different pedagogical methods can influence female students to perform better in physics. It will also attempt to answer the challenging question of whether pedagogy can reduce the well-known gender gap in performance and representation in the physical sciences. Our goal is therefore to promote female students' success, by determining which (if any) of those methods of teaching introductory physics will help narrow the gap.