Gender Gap In Achievement Research Articles

The gender achievement gap in grades and standardised tests-what accounts for gender inequality?

We studied the gender achievement gap in grades and standardised test scores in Finland, where the gender differences are largest among OECD countries. We compared the gender achievement gap in standardised test scores from PISA surveys and grades from high-quality school registers in literacy. Furthermore, we analysed how grades differ from standardised test scores by family background and students' SES composition of the schools. By using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method, we explored how different characteristics between girls and boys explain gender differences in grading. Our findings indicate that boys' grades were lower than can be expected based on standardised test scores. The gender gap in grades was explained by boys' lower reading interests, effort put into schoolwork, and conscientiousness on homework. However, even adjusting for schooling characteristics and competence, boys have lower grades than test scores in schools that have low SES student composition.

Gender, teacher, and school characteristics as predictors of advanced placement physics performance

AbstractAdvanced placement (AP) physics performance is an important metric for examining precollege student preparation for post‐secondary study. The present study examined potential predictors of AP Physics 1 performance including gender, teacher, and school‐level characteristics. A theoretical framework proposed teacher preparation and experiential variables are predictive of student outcomes, in addition to contextual variables that include demographics and academic offerings. Data showed that AP Physics 1 participants varied statistically from the overall high school population in terms of gender and ethnicity, with more women, White, and Asian students enrolled. AP Physics 1 teachers tended to be more experienced than other physics teachers. A multivariable linear regression model indicated significant negative predictors included female gender and socioeconomic status; the sole positive academic predictor was whether the school offered AP Chemistry. Notably, physics performance was not predicted by physics teacher characteristics including gender, certification type, years of experience, course load in physics, and isolation. Physics performance was also unrelated to school size, AP Physics enrollment, and access to AP Biology and Calculus. Results suggest that targeted resources should be identified to support teachers in high poverty schools, and training them to enact strategies that diminish gender achievement gaps.

Gender Disparities in Mathematics Achievement by Ethnic Origin: Evidence from Germany

The gender achievement gap in mathematics, a key component in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, has been widely documented. However, we know little about whether and how the gender gap in math achievement varies by ethnic origin. Using nationally representative data of fourth and ninth graders in Germany, we explore gender and ethnic gaps in math achievement. We measure students’ math achievement using both standardized tests and teacher assessments (i.e., grades). At both educational stages, girls underperform to boys in standardized tests. At comparable levels of competence, no gender differences in math grades are observed in fourth grade, but girls receive better math grades than boys in ninth grade. We also find evidence for ethnic variation in the gender achievement gap at both educational stages. Regarding test scores, the gender difference in math achievement to the disadvantage of girls is larger among Turkish-origin students in fourth grade, and Southern European students in ninth grade. Regarding teacher assessments, we similarly find differences in the gender achievement gap between Turkish-origin and native-born German students. One surprising finding of our study is that, at comparable levels of competence, Turkish-origin boys and MENA students (only in ninth grade) receive better math grades.

Reducing the math and language arts gender gaps in elementary school students through gender integration

Math and English Language Arts (ELA) are two major areas that continue to show gender achievement gaps in U.S. students. Given the importance of peer relations in academic success, the degree of gender integration in classrooms in early elementary school may shift student interest and performance to lessen these gender gaps. We tested the hypothesis that Gender Integration (GI; i.e., when students perceive that boys and girls work cooperatively in a classroom) would positively impact students' math and ELA-related outcomes. Further, we examined both cognitive and affective processes underlying this relation. Participants were 884 3rd to 5th graders (51.1 % boys; Mage = 9.04 years, SD = 0.90; 47.2 % White, 37 % Latine). Over the course of an academic year (fall, winter, and spring), we gathered student and teacher data. Path analyses showed that fall GI directly predicted greater spring ELA but not math achievement. Further, academic beliefs significantly mediated math achievement for girls and ELA achievement for boys. Because GI is malleable, the findings highlighted the importance of promoting GI early in students' educational environments as a way to promote both girls' and boys' educational beliefs and achievement.

Teacher judgements and gender achievement gaps in primary education in England, Germany, and the US

We examined whether inaccurate teacher judgements of primary school student achievement correlate with students’ gender and whether such bias contributes to gender achievement gaps in language and mathematics. Our study used ex-post harmonised longitudinal data from England, Germany, and the US. We observed domain-specific teacher judgement bias with a positive bias for girls in the language domain and for boys in mathematics. Furthermore, biased teacher judgements partly mediated the effect of gender on later achievement. Despite these common findings, cross-country differences emerged in the extent of teacher judgement bias as well as its mediation of gender achievement gaps. We conclude that this is a topic of relevance across national contexts and where the institutional and societal setting needs more attention in future research.

Gender Gap in Science Education

There has been a prolonged tendency of the gender gap in interest, participation, and achievement in science worldwide. This article explored the gender gap in achievement of science; revisited the possible causes of gender gap in interest, participation and achievement in science; and revisited the suggested remedy measures in a science classroom. The information for the study was collected through a survey of a variety of 48 written sources. The study revealed that there is a significant gender gap in achievement in science in secondary schools in Tanzania. The responsible factors include male-oriented curriculum materials, patterns of classroom interaction, teaching, and evaluation; parents and teachers' lower expectations for girls' achievement in science; and socialisation of girls into dependence, nurturance, and passivity. The recommended solutions include the promotion of gender-responsive curriculum and practice.

The role of student effort on performance in PISA: revisiting the gender gap in achievement

Abstract International assessments are important to benchmark the quality of education internationally. However, ignoring students’ efforts in low-stakes tests can lead to biased interpretations of test performance. We use data from the PISA to analyse the potential role of student effort in explaining gender achievement gaps across countries. We build two effort measures based on students’ response times to test questions (i.e. rapid-guessing rates) and the student effort on the post-test survey (i.e. item non-response rates). We find a strong association between student efforts and test scores. After accounting for differences in effort, the estimated gender achievement gap in mathematics and science could be up to 36% and 40% of an standard deviation wider, respectively, in favour of boys. Altogether, our effort measures on average explain between 51% and 56% of the cross-country variation in test scores.

All geared towards success? Cultural origins of gender gaps in student achievement

Although geographical and temporal variations in gender achievement gaps have received considerable attention, the role of culture in explaining this variation is not well understood. We exploit a large Swedish administrative data set to study gender gaps in education among second-generation immigrant youth with different cultural backgrounds. Guided by hypotheses we derive from the economics literature on gender differences and gender convergence, we explore the predictive power of a set of cultural dimensions including achievement orientation, acceptance of inequality, risk avoidance, and long-term orientation. Using a variety of empirical tests that refine the classical epidemiological approach, we find that the central cultural dimension that matters for gender gaps in student achievement is the extent to which a society emphasizes ambition, competition, and achievement, which is strongly predictive of a relative achievement disadvantage of girls compared with boys. Exploring factors that may explain the results, we find that parents from achievement-oriented cultures choose higher quality schools for their children, and that boys benefit more from exposure to higher quality schools than girls do. Using PISA data to probe external validity, we find qualitatively and quantitatively remarkably similar results in a very different sample of second-generation immigrant youth.

The effects of early between-school tracking on gender segregation and gender gaps in achievement: a differences-in-differences study

ABSTRACT We investigated effects of tracking students into higher, more academic, and lower, less academic, school types immediately after primary school (early tracking) instead of having a comprehensive secondary school system (late tracking) on school gender segregation and gender gaps in achievement outcomes. We assumed that, in early tracking countries, girls are more frequently selected into more academic school types, which leads to more school segregation by gender and achievement advantages of girls over boys. In a differences-in-differences design, we compared secondary-school-level gender inequalities between early and late tracking countries, after controlling for primary-school-level differences. We investigated 787 country-by-year observations in 33 matches of primary- and secondary-school-level data sets from three international large-scale assessments. As expected, we found that early tracking increased the degree of school gender segregation. Not conforming to expectations, the evidence did not indicate that tracking had effects on gender gaps in achievement.

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on reading performance of second grade children in Germany

In education, among the most anticipated consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are that student performance will stagnate or decline and that existing inequities will increase. Although some studies suggest a decline in student performance and widening learning gaps, the picture is less clear than expected. In this study, we add to the existing literature on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on student achievement. Specifically, we provide an analysis of the short- and mid-term effects of the pandemic on second grade reading performance in Germany using longitudinal assessments from over 19,500 students with eight measurement points in each school year. Interestingly, the effects of the pandemic established over time. Students in the first pandemic cohort even outperformed students from the pre-pandemic cohorts and showed a tendency towards decreased variances during the first lockdown. The second pandemic cohort showed no systematic mean differences, but generally had larger interindividual differences as compared to the pre-pandemic cohorts. While the gender achievement gap seemed unaffected by the pandemic, the gap between students with and without a migration background widened over time—though even before the pandemic. These results underline the importance of considering effects of the pandemic across cohorts, large samples, and fine-grained assessments. We discuss our findings considering the context-specific educational challenges and in terms of practical implications for teachers’ professional development.

Correspondence Heuristic and Filter-Empowerment Heuristic: Investigating the Reversed Gender Achievement Gap in a Sample of Secondary School Students in Saudi Arabia within the Framework of Educational and Learning Capital

The reversed gender achievement gap in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in favor of girls developed in a societal environment that still predominantly favors men. The finding illustrates how equity gaps at higher systemic levels may not translate seamlessly to lower systemic levels. We propose that this lack of correspondence between systemic levels regarding equity gaps can be explained by the fact that more exogenous learning resources (educational capital) selectively reach girls’ actiotopes, enabling them to build more effective endogenous learning resources (learning capital) and, in particular, effective action repertoires. To investigate this assumption, we introduce a filter-empowerment heuristic and contrast it with a simpler correspondence heuristic. We employ the filter-empowerment heuristic and the education and learning capital approach to investigate the reversed gender achievement gap in a sample of secondary school students in the KSA. We test four hypotheses: (a) Girls have higher academic achievement than boys. (b) Girls have more educational capital and (c) more learning capital than boys. (d) Educational and learning capital mediate the relationship between gender and academic achievement. The hypotheses were tested with a sample of 2541 ninth-grade students from 55 KSA schools. The four hypotheses were confirmed and support a filter-empowerment heuristic rather than a correspondence heuristic.

Closing the gender gap in science: new evidence from urban China

ABSTRACT In this paper, we analyze recently collected data that conducts a unique assessment of high school student performance for over two thousand students from five Chinese provinces. Across three domains of scientific intelligence tested, we document heterogeneous gender gaps in academic performance. These differences generally arise due to differential productivity of inputs to the education production process and not differential levels of inputs. At many quantiles of the achievement distribution, girls perform better than boys when identifying scientific issues, whereas the converse holds on the portion of the assessment that measures whether one can apply scientific evidence. These differences may partially explain the subsequent gap in decision to major in specific STEM disciplines in college. Further, our results imply caution from using a single summative gender achievement gap measure when gender gaps in subject knowledge are not constant across each domain of intelligence examined within the test.

Conscientiousness as a Predictor of the Gender Gap in Academic Achievement

In recent decades, female students have been more successful in higher education than their male counterparts in the United States and other industrialized countries. A promising explanation for this gender gap are differences in personality, particularly higher levels of conscientiousness among women. Using Structural Equation Modeling on data from 4719 Dutch university students, this study examined to what extent conscientiousness can account for the gender gap in achievement. We also examined whether the role of conscientiousness in accounting for the gender gap differed for students with a non-dominant ethnic background compared to students with a dominant ethnic background. In line with our expectations, we found that conscientiousness fully mediated the gender gap in achievement, even when controlling for prior achievement in high school. This was the case among both groups of students. These findings provide insight into the mechanisms underlying the gender gap in achievement in postsecondary education settings. The current study suggests that the use of conscientiousness measures in university admission procedures may disadvantage male students. Instead, the use of such measures may be a fruitful way to identify those students who may benefit from interventions to improve their conscientiousness. Future research could examine how conscientiousness can be fostered among students who are low in conscientiousness.

Investigating the Differential Effects of Early Child Care and Education in Reducing Gender and Racial Academic Achievement Gaps From Kindergarten to 8th Grade

We used the generalized propensity score method to estimate the differential effects of five Early Child Care and Education (ECCE) experiences (Prekindergarten, Head Start, Center-based Child Care, Home-based Child Care, and Parental Care) in reducing math and reading achievement gaps between boys versus girls, Latinx versus Whites, and Blacks versus Whites. Findings revealed differential effects of ECCE in reducing gender and racial achievement gaps. However, results indicated that significant gender and racial gaps still exist despite ECCE experiences and that these gaps widen throughout the elementary and middle school years.

Gender achievement gap in the national secondary education examination in Ethiopia

PurposeThis paper examines the gender achievement gap in the Ethiopian secondary education system using tenth-grade national examination results for the period 2002/03–2013/14.Design/methodology/approachStatistical tests are employed to determine equality of the average male and female GPAs (grade point average), and equality of the proportions of female and male test-takers in the upper and lower achievement distributions. Further, a panel fixed effects model is used to evaluate factors that affect the regional average GPAs by gender and to determine whether those factors could explain observed gender achievement gaps.FindingsResults indicate statistically significant gender achievement gaps in all regional states and the capital city. The gap has been persistent with a minor declining trend and will not be closed if continued at the current trend. The authors also find that the regional average male and female test scores could be explained partially by factors such as pupil-teacher ratio, the proportion of rural students and access to secondary schools. These factors, however, cannot explain the observed gender achievement gap.Originality/valueThe study uses regional data collected from the annual educational abstracts published by the Ethiopian ministry of education. It investigates the trends of the gender achievement gaps across the regional states and overtime at the tenth-grade level. It depicts the persistence of the gap hindering girls from furthering their education.

Racial and gender achievement gaps in an economics classroom

In this paper, we document gender and race/ethnic achievement gaps over four semesters of an intermediate-level economics course. We find that, on average, under-represented minority (URM) students score lower on assessments, and this racial achievement gap differs in important ways for male and female students. Male URM students earned lower final exam scores than male non-URM students, but this gap disappears when we control for differences in prior preparation. In contrast, female URM students performed significantly worse than female non-URM students, even after controlling for prior preparation. We also analyze scores on low-stakes assessments and surveys about study behavior and find that the theory of stereotype threat most consistently explains our results. As these issues are unlikely to be unique to our classroom, we offer several potential pedagogical approaches found in the literature to address the differences in prior preparation and stereotype threat that underlie observed achievement gaps.

Overcoming COVID-19: Strategies to Mitigate the Perpetuated Gender Achievement Gap.

Sex inequity in academic achievement was well documented before the COVID-19 pandemic, and evolving data suggest that women in academic surgery are disproportionately disadvantaged by the pandemic. This perspective piece reviews currently accepted solutions to the sex achievement gap, with their associated shortcomings. We also propose innovative strategies to overcoming barriers to sex equity in academic medicine that broadly fall into three categories: strategies to mitigate inequitable caregiving responsibilities, strategies to reduce cognitive load, and strategies to value uncompensated, impactful work. These approaches address inequities at the system-level, as opposed to the individual-level, lifting the burden of changing the system from women.

Boys lagging behind: Unpacking gender differences in academic achievement across East Africa

We estimate the current magnitude of gender gaps in literacy and numeracy in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, using large-scale nationally representative data of children ages 6–16. Using a household fixed effects approach, we document that girls outperform boys in all three countries; in numeracy by 0.03 SDs (Uganda) to 0.05 SDs (Kenya and Tanzania) and literacy by 0.06 SDs (Uganda and Tanzania) to 0.09 SDs (Kenya). However, the gender gap in achievement is highly geographically clustered, reversing in sign in some districts. In highlighting the heterogeneity of gender disparities in academic performance in these three countries in East Africa, this study show that systematic female disadvantage in schooling is no longer the norm.

Learning Biology for Sustainable Development Using Hands-On Strategy: Can Gender Achievement Gap Reduce?

Despite the importance of \biology for sustainable development, students’ performance in the subject has been inconsistent. Several interventions have been used to improve students’ learning of Biology but the inconsistency in performance persists. Thus, this study investigated the use of hands-on learning in enhancing students’ academic achievement. The research adopted a pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental research design with 2x2 factorial. The study also examined the moderating effect of gender on academic achievement. Fifty-eight students offering Biology in the intact classes of two randomly selected schools participated in the study. The data was collected using a 25-item Biology Achievement Test for Students (BATS) subjected to face and content validities, and reliability test. The test-retest reliability method yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.68. The data analyses revealed a significant difference in the effect of strategy on the academic achievement of students in Biology (F (1,53) =8.595), p=0.05, but in favour of the conventional method of teaching. Further findings showed no significant difference in the effect of gender on the academic achievement of students (F (1,53) = 0.980), p>0.05. The researchers noted that hand-on activities are important for Biology learning and recommended that school authorities should allocate adequate time for that purpose.

The Gender Achievement Gap: Do Teacher–Student Relationships Matter?

Low academic performance in middle childhood/early adolescence has long-term negative implications. The link between early performance and later outcomes is of special concern for boys, who tend to evidence lower levels of achievement than girls by early adolescence. Scholars have demonstrated that variations by gender in quality of teacher–student relationships may partly explain this achievement gap. That is, girls tend to have higher quality teacher–student relationships (i.e., higher levels of closeness and lower levels of conflict) than boys. Centering low-income early adolescents of color, the present analyses found that girls outperformed boys in both English Language Arts (ELA; p < .001) and math (p = .009). Teacher–student closeness fully and significantly mediated the association between gender and ELA (p = .05) and partially mediated the association between gender and math achievement (effects were nonsignificant). Teacher–student conflict partially mediated associations between gender and ELA and math achievement, although effects similarly did not reach significance. Results have the capacity to inform future interventions aiming to increase the utility of education and decrease school dropout among low-income boys of color.