July 24, 2008
Girls as Good as Boys at Math, Study Finds
This story was updated on August 8, 2008.
The perpetuated belief that says girls are worse than boys at mathematics is unfounded, a team of researchers at University of Wisconsin at Madison and University of California at Berkeley reports today in the journal Science. This conclusion challenges the frequently cited argument that says that poorer female math performance is the reason behind the shortage of women in physics and engineering careers.
The researchers examined extensive performance assessments of more than 7 million students, carried out by 10 states as required by the No Child Left Behind legislation. They found that, in standardized tests, the differences between the average math scores of boys and girls in grades 2-11 were zero.
It is also commonly said that boys are overrepresented at both ends of math performance; they are more frequently the best and the worst achievers than girls. The researchers found there’s more variability in the boys’ math scores; but this variance was not large.
When the research team studied if there were gender discrepancies at the highest levels of mathematical performance, they got different results depending on if the kids were white or Asian American. In Minnesota, 11-grader white boys hit the 99th percentile more than twice more than white girls in the same grade. But for Asian American students, the pattern got reversed.
“It might be the different cultures’ emphasis on Math,” says Janet S. Hyde, leader of the study. Her group has two ongoing studies analyzing data on the math performance of American children and youth in other nations.
Finally, the researchers took a look at SAT results. Males usually perform better than females at this test, but the researchers attributed this conclusion to poorly done statistics. The sample group is not random: only students who are applying to college take the SAT, and the two groups are different in size—more girls take this test than boys—so they can’t be compared fairly.
This week a coalition of engineering organizations launched Engineer Your Life, a national campaign to inform women about opportunities in engineering careers. —Maria José Viñas
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I’m glad something positive came out of No Child Left Behind.
— Ms Q Jul 24, 04:19 PM #
Unfortunately, this kind of survey does little to clarify whether there are significant sex differences at the highest level of mathemtical talent. The “high level” achievements studied here are, unfortunately for our understanding of the situation, actually low-level filters that hardly suffice to pick out significant creative talent in mathematics and related fields. True talent is a rare, and indeed, freakish phenomenon that standardized tests and grading proceedures simply can’t detect. To put it another way, one might do splendidly on the Math SAT or in calculus class without having very of what a mathematician would regard as high-level ability. Even Ph.D. numbers don’t reveal all that much, inasmuch as many doctoral degrees are awarded for work closely superintended by advisors, wherein the recipient never achieves the level of independence and originality that is necessary to substantial creativity.
— Fossil Jul 24, 05:21 PM #
I am posting this thought here because it is funny:
My 15 year old has a fabulous sense of humor and is very witty. He and I engage in constant banter. The subjects we banter about run the gamut of mundane and silly to quite complex.
Today I showed him this article. He only read the first sentance, discarded it on the couch, and said “No Kidding. That’s why us boys cheat off them.”
Of course, I couldn’t help but laugh at this. And, of course I am not advocating here that this is even a likely occurence. However, it DID get me to think about how truly relevant the “omitted variable” issue is to any statistical study.
I hope this tickled someone’s funny bone!!!
-Barbara
— Barbara Jul 24, 06:28 PM #
I find the conclusion predictable and boring. What about other factors, for example, personal interest in certain fields or professions?
— Brian Burchett Jul 24, 08:10 PM #
For those who teach mathematics, this is not a new discovery.
— Roger Jul 25, 07:34 AM #
Look at SAT math scores for the real lowdown on who does better, and the truth will be revealed. Boys score higher in math and have higher overall scores as well.
— Revelator Jul 25, 08:30 AM #
Can anyone imagine researchers at UC Berkely concluding something that actually supported this myth? The horror!If these researchers wanted to perform an accurate study using SAT scores, they could. They chose not to because they knew what they would find…that boys score higher regardless of the numbers who apply, take the test, etc.
— dream Jul 25, 08:39 AM #
“Girls as good as Boys at Math” – duh! Anyone who has taught k-12 math courses knows this.
— Kyle David Jul 25, 08:48 AM #
It might be helpful to consider other reasons why girls leave the sciences in droves after high school and in college. There is a significant shortage of women in the sciences, and socialization and cultural myths help to perpetuate the cycle.
— Mary Jul 25, 09:09 AM #
k-12 mathematics are the basics. There’s nothing to it besides rote memory.
Does one toddler pile blocks better than the other?
College-level math is where real gender differences can be discerned.
— Man in Your Back Pocket Jul 25, 09:23 AM #
I think the real problem with this survey is that the students have nothing riding on these tests so they don’t take them seriously. I remember as a student we’d just fill in the bubbles randomly and make pretty designs, etc. An accurate survey I think would require the students to actually try hard.
— Genghis Cohen Jul 25, 09:27 AM #
Didn’t Larry Summers lose his job for even asking this question?
— J Sprow Jul 25, 09:35 AM #
I would agree with many of the postings. I don’t think intelligence differences have ever been the issue. This type of study really shows nothing new, though depending on what age group is studied it could show greater or lesser differences since maturation occurs differently for girls and boys. I believe the real issue has always been the interest level as Brian #4 stated. Boys may tend to be more interested in mathematics and so go on to careers in the field. That is why there has been a push to get more girls interested in subjects like mathematics.
— Mike Jul 25, 09:48 AM #
This study is being misunderstood. It found the same average performance but it also found more variance in the boys performance, i.e. the same “more male idiots more male geniuses” that has been found in past studies.
If boys and girls have the same average and boys have a much higher std deviation then at the very highest levels (not the top 5% referred ot in the studies but say the top 0.01% that professional mathematicians are drawn from) we will find an overwhelming preponderance of males. To the reporters who think this story someone “rebuts” L. Summers remarks, please learn some basic statistics.
It is quite possible that males and females have the same average performance and that males dominate most brilliant mathematicians.
— dave Jul 25, 10:02 AM #
My friend is a physics major and when asked what he thought about women in his field he replied “I assume they are way smarter than me because only the really smart girls stick with the major.” I think this could in part explain why there are so few women in math and science; moderately talented men fell comfortable pursuing those fields while women feel that they have to be in the very top tier to succeed in these fields. It would be interesting to consider what social influences contribute to these differing attitudes.
— Erin Jul 25, 10:04 AM #
Two Things …
First, I must echo the sentiments of all of the mathematics teachers who said “Well Duh! Why didn’t they ask us? We’ve known that for years.”
Second, I don’t want to make too much of national comparisons, but check …
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0923110.html
and you will discover that the very mathematics students the Wisconsin and UC-Berkeley researchers assessed have knowledge and skills that are considerably less than they could be.
I recommend changing your headline to “Girls as Bad as Boys At Math, Study Finds.”
— Frizbane Manley Jul 25, 10:17 AM #
Re: #10: One has to realize that “college-level” math, as usually understood, meaning, typically, the math taken by prospective engineers and economists, and most science majors (calculus, differential equations, linear algebra) is, from the research mathematician’s point of view, rather low-level stuff where hard work will get you through even if you don’t have anything resembling “high level talent”. In 40 years of experience, I find that women do about as well as men in these classes. My impression (and it is nothing but that) is that the women work harder, while the men, more deeply immersed in the slacker culture, tend to rely on last-minute cramming.
Re #14: This precisely states the hypothesis that Summers was advancing (as one possibility among others), which was grossly misinterpreted by a lazy, ignorant press and some self-serving academic-feminist campus politicians. Summers was principally concerned with the kind of minds that are qualified to work in distinguished academic programs in mathematics and theoretical physics. The hypothesis, while far from certain, is quite reasonable in itself. It’s jittery ideologues who are unreasonable, to the point where they demand censorship of views that contradict their a priori dogmas, and Summers was the victim of that panic.
Anyone who wants to refer to Summers in the context of this discussion ought to read what he actually said, rather than relying on the gross distortions of his detractors.
— Fossil Jul 25, 02:10 PM #
It’s nice to see hard data indicating that girls are just as good at learning math, science, and engineering as boys. There are lower expectations for girls, as well as considerable social pressure for girls to avoid math, science, and engineering. In addition, discrimination still exists at the professional levels. All too often, men are automatically assumed to be able, while women are not.
Most of the standard arguments for women’s purported lack of ability have historically been used against minorities as well, and all have been rejected when applied to minorities. The “tail of the distribution” or “wider variance” arguments (re:#14) don’t hold water. There is no wider variance. In addition, the fact that some men are super-smart does not imply that super-smart women must be inferior to super-smart men. Brain size has often been quoted as a reason why girls are less intellegent than boys, because women’s brains are smaller. Women’s brains tend to be smaller because women tend to be smaller. There is no correlation between brain size and intellegence among individuals within a given species. If brain size were a factor, one would expect that small men would be less intellegent than large men. As for equality between girls and boys in K-12 versus the graduate level, all grad-level mathematicians have been through the K-12 system. Their talent must have been evident in K-12 or they would not have prepared to pursue a mathematical discipline in college. Since males and females exhibit equal ability K-12, the greater numbers of men in graduate programs may only be a symptom of socal forces, not innate talent. For example, biology used to be a very male-dominated field, but for the past decade half or more of biology Ph.D’s have been female. Women have ability.As an aside re:#10, K-12 mathematics is not rote memorization anymore. It involves the development and exercise of many higher mathematical reaoning skills and concepts.
Just because “everybody knows” something doesn’t mean it’s true. As Al Gore said in “An Inconvenient Truth,” “what gets us into trouble isn’t what we don’t know. It’s what we think we know that just ain’t so.” It’s a tragedy that so many potentially brilliant scientists, engineers, and mathematicians have been discouraged from fulfilling their potential because people insist on the veracity of old but unexamined assumptions that are both false and discriminatory.
— VF Jul 25, 02:30 PM #
Re: #19: Please bear in mind that it wasn’t Larry Summers who insisted on unexamined assumptions; indeed, the point of his talk was that these should be examined. It was his critics who insisted that THEIR assumptions must go unexamined.
— Fossil Jul 25, 02:44 PM #
# 16, well said! So true.
— Kyle David Jul 25, 05:21 PM #
Re: 18 and 14. Is VF saying that this study did not find that there was more variance in the male test results or that the study’s results are not valid?
— OB Jul 28, 01:46 PM #
I find it disturbing that K-12 educators are visiting NOW’s website at all. No wonder the education system serves our boys so poorly. No wonder so many boys today lack motivation. Personally, I can’t think of anything less inspiring, less credible, or more ridiculous than a feminist at the head of the classroom. Don’t think for one second that a ten year-old boy doesn’t see her for what she is. Children pick up on EVERYTHING. So what does the young fellow do? He dismisses it. All of it.
It should be public policy to keep those with feminists leanings out of the education system to the maximum extent possible. These people have no business teaching children. Their minds are too poisoned. Children today- girls as well as boys- face enough challenges without having to deal with the toxicity of such a flawed, misconceived ideology.
— Sir Mann Jul 30, 08:37 PM #
Some food for thought.
1) The study was conducted in part by Berkeley, a bastion of feminism. Was the study a truly objective one?
2) Why did the study discount the 12th grade?
3) The study discounts the SAT because of “poorly done” statistics. Yet the SAT undoubtedly would have provided an ENORMOUS amount of highly relevant data by which the researchers could have tested their hypothesis. Why didn’t they simply accept the data, make the necessary adjustments, calibrations, etc., and incorporate it into the study?
4) The study doesn’t address the wider variance of male test scores. Contrary to #18 above, variance is a reality. There is excellent research available to verify this.
5) At best, the study indicates, but still does not prove, that the average girl performs approximately as well as the average boy in 2-11 math. OK, so far so good. But then, it makes an enormous leap and concludes “therefore girls are as good as boys at math”. A broad statement for such a narrow study.
Is this science? Or is it just another example of the gynocracy trying to dispell its deepest fear?
— Sir Mann Jul 30, 11:17 PM #
I am a psychotherapist and today I was meeting with a female college student and her aunt. We were discussing the students’ problems with math and her aunt mentioned her sister, who is a teacher and who recently told her about this. I was delighted to see this and sent it on to the student with math problems. Hopefully, it will reassure her that we can do it.
— pat w Jul 31, 10:03 PM #
boy there are some really sick mysogynists that visit this website and take the time to make comments. maybe women who are otherwise capable of handling higher math eschew the field simply to avoid these antidiluvian jerks. what a bunch of losers. #22 takes the cake, but it was a close race.
— jb Jul 31, 10:52 PM #
re #14 & 23: Variance & the Genius range
I don’t think we can draw conclusions about extreme scores (ie. the brilliant range) from the mean & variance of these test scores. The middle part of the distribution may fit the normal assumption, but that doesn’t mean the ends of the tails do. I think extreme values need an analysis of their own.As well, these standarized tests are meant to measure the middle range of ability – not the extremes. (i.e. there will be a pool of students whose score is near perfect)
re: #23 SATs
The random sample is important here. Not sure how you would adjust for the self selected populations that write other exams – would you even have access to the covariates you want to adjust for? I’d want to know the effect of time spent studying, prep courses, personal & family expectations etc.
Also, see the author’s discussion of the ACT scores. When 2 states required the test for all students, there was no difference between average male & female scores; when the states let students choose, male scores were higher. The difference is in the populations who choose to write the exam.
— angie Jul 31, 11:58 PM #
Worth it to keep in mind that the study in question only treats tests results. Not the influences on them.
A number of other studies have shown that girls only tend to start shying away from math and science come adolescence. I´ll be damned if it were possible to attribute this phenomenon to DNA alone.
It should be obvious to everyone that cultural tradition does not exactly encourage young women to pursue math and science and feel competitive in these fields against their male peers. Maybe once we eradicate these social biases then we can really start to fairly examine the potential of either gender to excel at a given subject.
— dani Aug 1, 09:22 AM #