Education

UC Study Shows Girls Equal Boys In Math Tests

BERKELEY (BCN) ― Girls are now doing as well as boys on standardized mathematics assessment tests, according to a study released Thursday by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The study, published in the July 25 issue of the journal Science, concluded that the genders are probably equal because girls now match boys in the number and level of math courses they take in elementary and high school.

Marcia Linn, UC Berkeley professor of education, said girls' performance at the high school level lagged behind that of boys in the past, but increased participation in advanced courses has made up the difference in performance on state tests.

The team of researchers acquired math scores from state exams taken by more than 7 million students, then calculated the "effect size," a statistic that measures the degree of difference between the scores of boys and girls.

The effect sizes they found ranged from 0.01 to 0.06, meaning that the average scores of girls and boys were basically the same, according to Janet Hyde, the leader of the study and a psychology professor at UW-Madison.

Linn and Hyde have collaborated on several studies of gender differences in math and science learning.

Hyde noted in the report that, although girls take just as many advanced high school courses and women earn 48 percent of all mathematics bachelor's degrees, there remains a prevalent belief among parents, teachers and scholars that girls somehow struggle with math.

Those beliefs are "incredibly influential," Hyde said in a prepared statement. "If your mom or your teacher thinks you can't do math, that can have a big impact on your math self-concept."

The final piece of the study was a review of the SAT, on which girls consistently score lower than boys. The report concluded that this might be because more girls than boys now go to college, and since the report is only administered to students hoping to get into college, lower-achieving girls are more likely than their male counterparts to take the test.

"You're dipping farther down into the distribution of female talent, which brings down the average score," Hyde said. "That may be the explanation for (the results), rather than girls aren't as good as boys in math."

Linn also said that while girls have reached parity with boys in math classes, girls are still underrepresented in advanced science courses and in physical science and engineering careers.

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