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Can't ignore teacher bias. http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto...inds_teachers_grade_boys_more_generously.html

Beginning in 2002, the researchers studied three groups of Israeli students from sixth grade through the end of high school. The students were given two exams, one graded by outsiders who did not know their identities and another by teachers who knew their names.

In math, the girls outscored the boys in the exam graded anonymously, but the boys outscored the girls when graded by teachers who knew their names. The effect was not the same for tests on other subjects, like English and Hebrew. The researchers concluded that in math and science, the teachers overestimated the boys' abilities and underestimated the girls', and that this had long-term effects on students' attitudes toward the subjects.

As University of Minnesota-Morris, biology professor PZ Myers said in his Science Blogs response to the study that these findings are particularly remarkable because math is supposed to be one of "those incredibly objective disciplines in which questions all have a right answer and a best method." But according to this study, teacher expectations can have a strong hand in guiding how even math scores are assessed.

The reason this matters is that there's a large body of research showing that teacher expectations can dramatically influence whether a student shows "innate" talent. In a 1966 paper, researchers Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson chose 20 percent of students, at random, and told their teachers that the students had performed remarkably well on a "test for intellectual blooming." The belief that the kids were gifted, it turns out, made it so, as the kids randomly labeled that way showed greater gains on IQ tests than the kids that the teachers believed were just average.

That dynamic has been dubbed the "Pygmalion effect," and it's shown up in study after study: Just by believing that a student has an aptitude for something, the teacher makes it more likely to be true. So it matters quite a bit that teachers have unconscious beliefs that boys are better at math than girls, and we may be seeing the results in the many girls who might otherwise enjoy math getting discouraged and dropping out.

(emphasis added)

 

[TheRagnCajun]

My personal annecdotal observation is that there seems to be an archtype of boys/men who have exceptional math skills but severely lack in reading. I'm not sure what percentage of men fall into that archtype, or what the reasons behind it are, but it seems like every class has a couple boys like this. By contrast, the girls who were good at math were generally good in all subjects.

 

[Into]

You will get different answers from a sociologist and a evolutionary behavioral scientist

The question is who do you believe more?

 

[True Savior]

You will get different answers from a sociologist and a evolutionary behavioral scientist

The question is who do you believe more?

Engineers.

 

[Amentallica]

The graph that shows the greatest disparity between the two sexes is reading, with females leading the pact, yet you decided to focus on the mathematics, where males lead only marginally.

 

[StoneFox]

Girls are really told that they're bad at math since they're young? Never heard of this till now.

Happened to me.

 

[Zaru]

Those charts are shit. Different y axis makes the comparison a lot less intuitive.

 

[EightBitNate]

Girls are really told that they're bad at math since they're young? Never heard of this till now.

Have never heard before either. Why would a teacher discourage a student like that? Why would they give a shit lol

 

[PdotMichael]

The graph that shows the greatest disparity between the two sexes is reading, with females leading the pact, yet you decided to focus on the mathematics, where males lead only marginally.

Well, it's interesting because girls general study more and longer than boys for school, so they should dominate in all fields.

 

[Akuun]

It tended to be small things that added up over time.

Through out highschool our teachers would bring up statistics like this all the time, and they would try to push me to study more traditional feminine topics (like English). Only once did a teacher ever look at my math grades and exams scores and go: "Hey, you should consider doing this at a higher level." Otherwise if I expressed interest, I was told that math was really hard or asked how I could possibly be interested.

I was the top performaner in math for my year (although I tended to take classes with older students) but if any guy managed to get near my score he was a natural genius, while I just must have worked very hard. The same guys would constantly tell me that they were "naturally" better and when, as I previously mentioned, teachers would cite these kind of statistics, they felt vindicated and in discussions would say I was just an anomaly or that I compensated by studying more, as girls do. And the few times I slipped (like coming in second instead of first) it was: "Well, you know guys are better anyways..."

Fun times, highschool. I don't hear it at the university level except for like one or two questionable rants by teachers. And our math/stat department has a good ratio of female students.

I think my fiancee has to put up with something similar. She did software engineering in uni (hugely male-dominated field and classes), and while she was treated fairly by her classmates, she still has to deal with a similarly huge stigma about women in the field. People just don't seem to take her ideas as seriously, or they automatically assume she's a non-technical person when she goes to programming conventions. At one point a professor told her that she only got a co-op job because she was a girl (seriously, what the fuck). Crap like that. It leads to a lot of pressure to feel like you have to prove yourself in your field. Guys don't have to deal with that because they aren't automatically assumed to be bad at their field until proven otherwise.

I think it's something that seems to happen in situations where guys haven't worked with a girl in the same field. She doesn't get unfair treatment at work for example, because everyone is used to working with her. But that attitude is still very prevalent in more public places like conventions and internet forums.

 

[Pau]

Have never heard before either. Why would a teacher discourage a student like that? Why would they give a shit lol

According to teachers that said such things to me: so that I would know what the reality was.

 

[EightBitNate]

According to teachers that said such things to me: so that I would know what the reality was.

So they told you to give up? Sounds like you had some really shitty teachers. Everyone I knew was encouraged to do whatever they want.

Math always just came easier to the boys of the class. I think it's because young boys have shorter attention spans than girls. They can't focus as much as girls can. Math is kinda like "ok here's the concept, now go try it." However, girls were always more likely to study than guys, which explains the reading thing.

 

[The Omega Man]

This evens out by women being better at languages.

 

[Epsilon-delta]

All I took from the study is that men suck at reading.

 

[Greddleok]

The whole gender bias doesn't really hold up. If that were so you'd expect to see the same pattern in sciences.

 

[PdotMichael]

So they told you to give up? Sounds like you had some really shitty teachers. Everyone I knew was encouraged to do whatever they want.

Math always just came easier to the boys of the class. I think it's because young boys have shorter attention spans than girls. They can't focus as much as girls can. Math is kinda like "ok here's the concept, now go try it." However, girls were always more likely to study than guys, which explains the reading thing.

Math is that subject where are instantly lost forever if you didn't pay attention to the previous lessons.
The problem solving approach in math is more likely in line what boys want.

 

[Pau]

So they told you to give up? Sounds like you had some really shitty teachers. Everyone I knew was encouraged to do whatever they want.

They didn't tell me to give up directly, no. Those discussions were more like a "Well okay you say you're good at math but you should know your place" type of thing. And certainly no encouragement from the teachers who felt the need to have those discussions.

 

[J. Bravo]

Men are More objective? Makes sense because math and science are absolute, while reading could be considered more subjective because it allows and encourages your imagination to wander.

Idk if any of that makes sense. I'm bad at explaining things.

 

[Shredderi]

I don't know about Finland, but in this case at least in Korea and Japan a lot of kids are made to study like non-stop. Tests are treated as the most important thing ever, and lots of kids have a ton of pressure to do very, very well. It's not really a great way to raise kids (not much of a childhood) but it sure does help these kind of scores.

Finnish guy here. There's none of that pressure in here.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

The whole gender bias doesn't really hold up. If that were so you'd expect to see the same pattern in sciences.

'Sciences' is way more broad than 'maths' and each individual division within it suffers its own bias.

Edit: Or am I confusing what 'gender bias' means?

 

[soco]

As noted, a lot of this is culture and stereotyping. It's a pretty well-studied phenomenon, and it extends into other areas such as career choice. The same is true among races too. Think about your stereotype for an mathematician or engineer. You may not realize it, but it affects the way you treat people who don't meet this stereotype. Even when you try to be welcoming of the difference, you'll probably overdo it and it'll come off as creepy and weird, ultimately having a similar effect.

 

[A Fish Aficionado]

Engineers.

Same as not all doctors are scientists not all engineers are scientists.

 

[No Life King]

Blaming the results of this study solely on gender roles is absolute garbage.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Then explain why women score on par with men for science scores? Gender roles should theoretically have the same effect on performance for both math and science, yet only the math scores are lower.

Which specific science are they scoring the same on?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

My dad is a former math teacher. My brothers were terrible at math (well, one of them was about average and the other was outright terrible, he hated it too) but I was pretty decent. I didn't like it much though so I got lazy about homework and stuff later in high school, but I was always getting better grades than my brothers. I'd say my dad being a math teacher and always being very encouraging towards his daughter must have had something to do with it.

Also, maybe I'm just a dumb girl who's bad at math but it seems like the difference in the first graph is not that significant, especially compared to the reading chart which is "holy shit" level really...

 

[True Savior]

Which specific science are they scoring the same on?

Science

Definition : An individual’s scientific knowledge and use of that knowledge to identify questions, to acquire new knowledge,to explain scientific phenomena, and to draw evidence-based conclusions about science-related issues. It includes understanding the characteristic features of science as a form of human knowledge and enquiry, awareness of how science and technology shape our material, intellectual, and cultural environments, and willingness to engage in science-related issues,and with the ideas of science,as a reflective citizen.

Contents: Scientific knowledge or concepts are related to physics, chemistry, biological sciences and earth and space sciences,but they are applied to the content of the items and not just recalled.

Processes : describing, explaining and predicting scientific phenomena ; understanding scientific investigation ; interpreting scientific evidence and conclusions

Types of question of the most recent PISA (the results are not out yet) . You can check some science ones.

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/PISA2015-Released-FT-Cognitive-Items.pdf

 

[internetwolf]

Then explain why women score on par with men for science scores? Gender roles should theoretically have the same effect on performance for both math and science, yet only the math scores are lower.

How could I possibly explain something like that? haha I'm no researcher.

 

[EightBitNate]

Then explain why women score on par with men for science scores? Gender roles should theoretically have the same effect on performance for both math and science, yet only the math scores are lower.

Standardized tests for science are usually based off applying logic to a reading or diagram. Seems like it could require equal parts logic and cognition.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Science

Definition : An individual’s scientific knowledge and use of that knowledge to identify questions, to acquire new knowledge,to explain scientific phenomena, and to draw evidence-based conclusions about science-related issues. It includes understanding the characteristic features of science as a form of human knowledge and enquiry, awareness of how science and technology shape our material, intellectual, and cultural environments, and willingness to engage in science-related issues,and with the ideas of science,as a reflective citizen.

Contents: Scientific knowledge or concepts are related to physics, chemistry, biological sciences and earth and space sciences,but they are applied to the content of the items and not just recalled.

Yes within science there are things like computer science, health science, earth science, etc. In the schools I work for there is only a single 'math' track. It tends to go through the basics, then into geometry, then algebra, then algebra II, then either pre-calc or AP calc. However in science you can take a biology track, or a chemistry track , or physics track, etc. There are definitely more boys in the computer science track, and more girls in the biology one.

 

[LUFTRAUSER]

I'm a guy, but I'm terrible at math yet excel at reading, writing, etc. What's up with that?

 

[Rad-]

Guy here. I was pretty good in math and bad in reading. Reading has always been super boring for me. Like when I started reading some school stuff, I spaced out every 2 minutes. In almost every subject. But with math I could concentrate better because there was a mystery to solve (so to speak) and that way it was more interesting.

 

[A Fish Aficionado]

For a forum that prides itself on being very STEM oriented, it does a pretty poor job at the interpreting and discussion part of studies.

 

[blueberry_racehorse]

For me, in elementary school and high school, a lot of the teachers just made math so boring... It wasn't until calculus that I actually started appreciating and enjoying the subject ...

I realize this isn't an answer the OP, but I had exactly this anecdotal experience in a public US School as well.

My school system had a slow, normal, fast, and extra fast(fast track for grade above you) math system. The slow track was more boys than girls, the normal and fast were slightly more girls than boys, and then the extra fast had very few people, but was pretty much 80% 20% boys to girls.

Math before calc felt like it was just busywork that you went through to get good grades.
Calc in highschool was made interesting mostly by virtue of the unexpectedly passionate teacher, and partly by the material.

Math in college was pretty hit or miss though.

 

[True Savior]

For a forum that prides itself on being very STEM oriented, it does a pretty poor job at the interpreting and discussion part of studies.

And you don't have to read the "why are you not exposing the bad reading level of boys ?"

Oh boy...

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Neat data for sure. I'm not really willing to make a judgement on how much of the results are based on biology since the data doesn't really address that, but I do find it interesting the frankly massive gap in reading skills between women and men. Even accounting for the shrunken scale it's much bigger then the math gap.

The other thing I noticed was that most of the countries where math scores were almost equal were Baltic countries. Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Finland and Estonia all have near equal scores between genders (sorry Denmark!) Not sure if this is indicative of a cultural or systemic bias but it's interesting for sure.

 

[btown]

The smartest kids in my math classes were usually girls.

 

[Famassu]

Wouldn't then the science scores also be worse?

Science requires quite a bit of reading, women are better at that.

 

[True Savior]

I don't know. The difference really is not that large.

I find the fact that women absolutely destroy men in reading across the board far more interesting. Why do men suck at reading OP?

Women perform better than men at school. I know you don't have to look at the study but its all there. They study much more. They tend to be much more focused. Math results show a trend that is a complete abnormality . Hence my question.

As for the difference , i know you also don't need to versed on statistics to post on GAF , but yes the difference is very significant. Both the mean scores and (especially) the trend are very significant in such huge samples.

There's like 2-3000 pages about these tests. It's a joy to read it all And answers many questions some users had. Even the math one.
http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results.htm

 

[Kinitari]

It's not math, but my girlfriend has been learning how to program/I've been teaching her.

One thing I've really noticed is that she had this habit of not typing in a function or some line of code unless she was significantly more sure about it working than i would have been in her situation. I sort of just try and see, look at the results and reason about why they aren't what i expected. When she started, she would often have 2 or 3 different potential answers in her head but freeze when she had to put them to the test. It's like... She thought she would lose points if she wrote it wrong.

She's gotten a lot better, and I've really tried to beat that habit out of her. One thing that really helped was asking her to speak through her thought process when i gave her a challenge (this talking through her thoughts thing is something we've employed in our relationship just to improve communication) and whenever she had a potential solution, I would yell out "try it!".

I'd also intentionally give her questions that i knew she would get wrong. I'd figure out what her assumptions were and frame a question around them. She haaaaaated it at first, but now a part of her seems to be starting to enjoy having her assumptions challenged, and i think these little tricks are making her more comfortable with being wrong.

My takeaway from all this is that she (i don't know about women in general) really doesn't like feeling like she did something wrong or looking like she did something wrong. So my goal has been trying to get her to embrace being wrong.

 

[LawfulEnder]

"Here are two charts. One shows that boys performs slightly better than girls in a lot of countries at math, and the other shows that girls perform substantially better at reading in every single country listed."

"Why are girls so bad at math?"

 

[UFO]

Guy here. I was pretty good in math and bad in reading. Reading has always been super boring for me. Like when I started reading some school stuff, I spaced out every 2 minutes. In almost every subject. But with math I could concentrate better because there was a mystery to solve (so to speak) and that way it was more interesting.

I was the exact same way.

I have a hard time buying into the "gender roles" argument. I was good at math before I ever know what math was. It was just "oh, 2+2=4, this makes sense". It wasn't like playing with Ninja Turtles vs Barbies made me any better. I can understand the teacher bias argument to a degree, but it still doesn't explain what begin driving people to favor boys for math and girls for reading. Like was there some big meeting that took place thousands of years ago were leaders divided up what activities boys should be good at and what girls should be good at?

I find the old adage of men were hunters and women were nurturers explains it better.

 

[linsivvi]

"Here are two charts. One shows that boys performs slightly better than girls in a lot of countries at math, and the other shows that girls perform substantially better at reading in every single country listed."

"Why are girls so bad at math?"

The funniest thing is that the chart in the OP left out the highest performing countries.

In fact, girls performed better at math than boys in Singapore, which is the top rated country (since only Shanghai is used for China, that shouldn't count).

So what's the point of this thread again?

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

So what's the point of this thread again?

To explain why it may happen in those countries?

 

[LucidMomentum]

The funniest thing is that the chart in the OP left out the highest performing countries.

So what's the point of this thread again?

People like clickbait topic titles and can misinterpret and / or misuse data?

 

[lanella]

I was the exact same way.

I have a hard time buying into the "gender roles" argument. I was good at math before I ever know what math was. It was just "oh, 2+2=4, this makes sense". It wasn't like playing with Ninja Turtles vs Barbies made me any better. I can understand the teacher bias argument to a degree, but it still doesn't explain what begin driving people to favor boys for math and girls for reading. Like was there some big meeting that took place thousands of years ago were leaders divided up what activities boys should be good at and what girls should be good at?

I find the old adage of men were hunters and women were nurturers explains it better.

Thousands of years ago math was thought to be unsuitable for women because they were delegated to staying at home and taking care of the children. That bias is not as prevalent, and is more implicit, but still exists.

The math skill gap between boys and girls has significantly shortened throughout the years, but still somewhat exists because people still operate under traditional gender roles.

 

[linsivvi]

To explain why it may happen in those countries?

If that's the genuine intention then the question should be "why are boys scoring higher than girls in standardized tests in some countries?".

Asking why are men better at math than women is already a loaded and biased question, even more so when the data is cherry picked.

People like clickbait topic titles and can misinterpret and / or misuse data?

Exactly.

 

[farisr]

That reading one seems about right based on my anectodal observation.

Most of the women I know love reading, whereas most of the men I know, don't and try to avoid it at all costs (including me).

As for math, it's been a mix, no clear trend among the people I know.

 

[UFO]

Thousands of years ago math was thought to be unsuitable for women because they were delegated to staying at home and taking care of the children. That bias is not as prevalent, and is more implicit, but still exists.

The math skill gap between boys and girls has significantly shortened throughout the years, but still somewhat exists because people still operate under traditional gender roles.

So they weren't allowed to be good at math, but were allowed to be good and reading and writing? That does't make any sense.

 

[vypek]

STEM seems to be generally geared towards men (at least here in the States) but science isn't leaning to one gender like Math is. Perhaps it comes down to how it is being taught and how different genders typically learn things? Would be interested in knowing a concrete answer. Someone submit this as a topic to Brain Games. They'll get the answers.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

If that's the genuine intention then the question should be "why are boys scoring higher than girls in standardized tests in some countries?".

Asking why are men better at math than women is already a loaded and biased question, even more so when the data is cherry picked.



Exactly.

The way I see it, a thread post page 2 is no longer in the hands of the OP, nor s/he determines what the discussion is about anymore. My point was that the thread was now about what I said precisely because you posted it.