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Study of 1.6 Million Grades Shows Little Gender Difference in Math and Science at School (theconversation.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

A study of school grades of more than 1.6 million students shows that girls and boys perform similarly in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) subjects. From a report: The research, published today in Nature Communications, also shows that girls do better than boys in non-STEM subjects. Our results provide evidence that large gaps in the representation of women in STEM careers later in life are not due to differences in academic performance. One explanation for gender imbalance in STEM is the "variability hypothesis." This is the idea that gender gaps are much larger at the tails of the distribution -- among the highest and lowest performers -- than in the middle.

9 of 370 comments (clear)

  1. Equal abilities by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Boys and girls have both the same abilities. However boys tend to be more inclined to pursue studies in science.

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    1. Re:Equal abilities by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1, Interesting

      It's evidently true, all the statistical evidence says that it is true.

      The question is why. Most people who study biology, psychology and sociology don't think that it is due to some biological difference.

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    2. Re:Equal abilities by cayenne8 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It might be that these new findings are due to the long term dumbing down of males that we've essentially been undertaking over the past decades.

      We've been pushing females so much lately, and ignoring the males and what made them excel in the past, so...these new findings aren't that surprising.

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    3. Re: Equal abilities by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That assumes that the variation is biological. How do you exclude social factors?

      There's no absolute way to exclude them, that I'm aware of. But that's not really how science works. We don't have to exclude every single possibility before drawing a conclusion, or we would never be able to draw any conclusions at all. As someone pointed out below, when we are talking about differences between sexes biology is a default explanation. If you can exclude biological factors as the explanation, great, then we know they're not at play. This study doesn't do that; rather it reinforces what every other study has found: greater variability in males than in females. You can claim that this doesn't prove that the difference is biological, but given the persistence of these findings across cultures it's a fairly safe bet that biology is a significant factor.

      And even if it is biological, does that mean it can't be overcome?

      I don't know. I think the better question is whether it's something that we should be trying to overcome in the first place. That's where this stops being a scientific discussion and starts being an ideological one. You seem to think that, if girls are underperforming in some areas, there is a moral imperative to bring them up to par. I disagree. Just like I would disagree that we need to bring boys up to par in areas where they underperform. I'm perfectly fine with having diversity and letting people focus on the things they're actually good at rather than wasting time and money trying to force them to improve at everything else. I see no reason why the sexes need to be identical in every respect, any more than individuals would need to be identical in every respect regardless of sex.

      That logic doesn't really work though, because school isn't the only factor in their lives and school isn't one single environment but rather a whole number of different experiences. I remember the atmosphere in some classes being very different to others, for example.

      That's true, but it's just another confounding factor in this study which isn't (maybe can't be) ccounted for.

    4. Re: Equal abilities by c6gunner · · Score: 1, Interesting

      That isn't justified when science is telling us that it's mostly social, with only a tiny and often insignificant part being biological.

      That's begging the question. I'm pointing out the problems with these studies and you're just saying "well the science says ..." as if there were no disagreement over their conclusions. What the science actually shows is that both biology and environment play a role. How much each one contributes depends a lot on the society we are looking at, but even if we limit ourselves to just looking at the USA it is still very much an open question.

  2. Conclusion highly suspect. by supercell · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Considering the authors, the funding source and even that they get funding to study gender issues, smells of a biased result.

  3. Girls better in non-STEM by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Boys and girls have both the same abilities. However, boys tend to be more inclined to pursue studies in science.

    ...or less inclined to follow arts-based courses. This study also shows that girls are better than boys at non-STEM courses by a far more significant margin than the reversed difference in STEM courses at school. So perhaps the deficit in STEM degrees is because more women choose non-STEM degrees where they do have an ability advantage, on average, over men?

  4. "Variability Hypothesis" WTF? by Ranbot · · Score: 1, Interesting

    From the summary: "One explanation for gender imbalance in STEM is the "variability hypothesis." This is the idea that gender gaps are much larger at the tails of the distribution -- among the highest and lowest performers -- than in the middle."

    I have a hard time believing that out of 1.6M students the ends of the bell curve vary so extremely from those in the middle. Maybe there are other systematic issues.... just maybe? Not that I think we're going to fix systematic issues overnight, but we don't do ourselves any favors by avoiding them either.

  5. sticking my neck out ... by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Grades are ... highly elastic things.

    I have kids in grade school right now. Sometimes they get to redo assignments if they did badly on them, sometimes they even get to redo tests. Sometimes homework counts for a lot, sometimes a little. Sometimes extra credit is possible, sometimes it isn't. Some teachers offer more extra help, some less.

    There's a lot of room for ... what shall we call it, fudge factor? And I'm pretty sure I know what direction the pressure would be in this scenario.

    So first things first; we may not "know" what we think we know from this study at all.