I'm not a teacher, so I don't come at the issue from that perspective, but this is an issue very close to my heart. I guess my perspective is more from the social environment and personal choices of the students? I don't know how to describe it. Hm.
Anyway. It wasn't comprehensive, but I did a study on this a few years ago, based on local school district data (11th and 12th grade scores and participation) combined with state data (4th and 8th grade mandatory standardized tests). It was very interesting to see the statistics.
What I saw was that as age increased, so did the gap. This isn't new information. Some people are quick to say that it's because "oh, 4th grade math isn't hard enough to show a difference in potential. The innate difference comes when you get to higher levels of math, where it's more difficult." But I don't agree; there are plenty of 4th graders who struggle with that level of math, and according to the data, that doesn't seem to be gender-based. The basic thought processes for math are the same up through higher levels, for the most part. If girls really are just not as tuned in to that kind of thinking, not as innately gifted in math, I would honestly expect that to be reflected (I believe the actual data showed that 4th grade girls outperformed 4th grade boys, but not with a statistically significant margin).
What interested me most, though, was from our local school district data. The high school AP classes (college-level courses taught in high school, where students take a test at the end of the year to qualify for college credit) in math and science had a significant skew towards the men--in participation. But not performance. The female mean and median scores were higher than the male mean and median scores, but the sample size was much smaller. There are several possible explanations, but the one that fit with the 4th/8th grade trends was this: mid-level females weren't taking the classes. A male who would likely make a B would much more probably enroll in a class than a female who would likely make a B.
My thoughts on the standardized test gap are related to that concept. Girls are not taking the advanced classes (even as far back as 8th grade, it appeared. Here, math splits in 7th grade between "regular" and "pre-algebra," and again in 8th grade to "regular," "pre-algebra," and "algebra." That split sticks with students until they graduate, with even more splits in high school). When students get to the age to take standardized tests, then, the males are more likely to have had advanced classes in math that would have further prepared them for the test content.
So not only have the girls not been taught in a way that they would learn, many of them have simply not been taught. The girls that stuck around did as well as their high-performing male counterparts; it's hard not to wonder how the mid-range girls would have performed in comparison to their mid-range male counterparts, had they taken the courses. The whole situation makes me a little sick to my stomach, and feels vaguely overwhelming. I presented a paper based on my research at a regional meeting of the Texas Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers, and I did things in college like organize a free weekend math/science workshop for middle school girls, where a group of college-aged female math/science majors showed the girls awesome college-level science experiments and tricks. But it's such a massive problem, and I don't even know where to begin to try and help fix it.
no subject
Anyway. It wasn't comprehensive, but I did a study on this a few years ago, based on local school district data (11th and 12th grade scores and participation) combined with state data (4th and 8th grade mandatory standardized tests). It was very interesting to see the statistics.
What I saw was that as age increased, so did the gap. This isn't new information. Some people are quick to say that it's because "oh, 4th grade math isn't hard enough to show a difference in potential. The innate difference comes when you get to higher levels of math, where it's more difficult." But I don't agree; there are plenty of 4th graders who struggle with that level of math, and according to the data, that doesn't seem to be gender-based. The basic thought processes for math are the same up through higher levels, for the most part. If girls really are just not as tuned in to that kind of thinking, not as innately gifted in math, I would honestly expect that to be reflected (I believe the actual data showed that 4th grade girls outperformed 4th grade boys, but not with a statistically significant margin).
What interested me most, though, was from our local school district data. The high school AP classes (college-level courses taught in high school, where students take a test at the end of the year to qualify for college credit) in math and science had a significant skew towards the men--in participation. But not performance. The female mean and median scores were higher than the male mean and median scores, but the sample size was much smaller. There are several possible explanations, but the one that fit with the 4th/8th grade trends was this: mid-level females weren't taking the classes. A male who would likely make a B would much more probably enroll in a class than a female who would likely make a B.
My thoughts on the standardized test gap are related to that concept. Girls are not taking the advanced classes (even as far back as 8th grade, it appeared. Here, math splits in 7th grade between "regular" and "pre-algebra," and again in 8th grade to "regular," "pre-algebra," and "algebra." That split sticks with students until they graduate, with even more splits in high school). When students get to the age to take standardized tests, then, the males are more likely to have had advanced classes in math that would have further prepared them for the test content.
So not only have the girls not been taught in a way that they would learn, many of them have simply not been taught. The girls that stuck around did as well as their high-performing male counterparts; it's hard not to wonder how the mid-range girls would have performed in comparison to their mid-range male counterparts, had they taken the courses. The whole situation makes me a little sick to my stomach, and feels vaguely overwhelming. I presented a paper based on my research at a regional meeting of the Texas Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers, and I did things in college like organize a free weekend math/science workshop for middle school girls, where a group of college-aged female math/science majors showed the girls awesome college-level science experiments and tricks. But it's such a massive problem, and I don't even know where to begin to try and help fix it.