Gender Gaps in Different Grading Systems

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of grading practices on the gender gap in student achievement. We examine the gender difference in the difference between teacher grading and scores on national exams to test whether there are gender differences associated with different grading systems. We use Portuguese data on 21 subjects across humanities and sciences for the whole population of students taking exams at the end of the 6th, 9th, 11th and 12th grades from 2007 to 2016. Results show that the difference in scores between teacher grading and exams is on average positive for boys and girls, but higher for the latter. This is verified across the whole distribution of exam scores. Thus, our results indicate that a grading system based on exams favors boys while one based on classroom evaluation favors girls.