Re: math equality in genders

[gbracey1@verizon.net]

 Joe, where did this appear?

This is a fascinating area and I wish I had more time to explore it.  I 
can say without doubt, Janet Hyde's hypothesis about girls' SAT being 
lower because there are more girls in college is WRONG.  When the 
College Board released "On Further Examination" in 1977, they found that 
women socred 55 points lower than men in 1960 and 52 points lower in 
1977.  The percentage of women taking the test was 42.7 in 1960, 47.5 in 
1977.

After that, it gets more complicated and more fascinating.  In 
international comparisons, girls consistently outscore boys in reading 
and usually by sizeable amounts.  In TIMSS 8th grad math, only in 14 of 
45 countries do boys outscore girls.  Most of the differences within 
countries are very, very, small.  And the three largest are Tunisia, 24 
points favoring boys, Jordan 27 points and Bahrain 33 points, both 
favoring girls.  I can't help but think this has something to do with 
sampling, although none of the countries are cited by TIMSS as not 
meeting samplying requirements or testing the appropriate population.

In TIMSS 8th grade science, only 10 of 45 countries have scores favoring 
girls.

Jerry


On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at  4:42 PM, monicalucido@comcast.net wrote:

> Ok, here's another one. I really like the line that states we need to 
> have tests with "more critical thinking questions". These people just 
> might have their heads too far up their rears. The real world requires 
> REAL problem solving. Making a longer, harder test is not going to 
> solve whatever "competitive" issues there may be (and that's already 
> been debated hotly today and yesterday). Once again, any opinions on 
> the validity of this study?

Math study finds girls are just as good as boys
2 hours ago
35 Recommendations
WASHINGTON � Sixteen years after Barbie dolls declared, "Math class is 
tough!" girls are proving that when it comes to math they are just as 
tough as boys. In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to 
boys in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released 
Thursday in the journal Science.

Parents and teachers persist in thinking boys are simply better at math, 
said Janet Hyde, the University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who led 
the study. And girls who grow up believing it wind up avoiding harder 
math classes.

"It keeps girls and women out of a lot of careers, particularly 
high-prestige, lucrative careers in science and technology," Hyde said.

That's changing, though slowly.

Women are now earning 48 percent of undergraduate college degrees in 
math; they still lag far behind in physics and engineering.

But in primary and secondary school, girls have caught up, with 
researchers attributing that advance to increasing numbers of girls 
taking advanced math classes such as calculus.

Hyde and her colleagues looked at annual math tests required by the No 
Child Left Behind education law in 2002. Ten states provided enough 
statistical information to review test scores by gender, allowing 
researchers to compare the performances of more than 7 million children.

The researchers found no difference in the scores of boys versus girls � 
not even in high school. Studies 20 years ago showed girls and boys did 
equally well on math in elementary school, but girls fell behind in high 
school.

"Girls have now achieved gender parity in performance on standardized 
math tests," Hyde said.

The stereotype that boys are better at math has been fueled, at least in 
part, by suggestions of biological differences in the way little boys 
and little girls learn. This idea is hotly disputed; Lawrence Summers, 
then the president of Harvard, was castigated in 2005 when he questioned 
the "intrinsic aptitude" of women for top-level math and science.

Joy Lee, a rising senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and 
Technology in Alexandria, Va., says she always felt confident about 
math, but remembers how it felt to walk into a science class full of 
boys. "Maybe I was a little bit apprehensive about being the only girl, 
but that didn't last for very long," said Lee, president of a school 
club that tries to get young girls interested in science and technology, 
along with engineering and math.

"I definitely do encourage other girls to pursue those interests and to 
not be scared to take those courses just because there are not very many 
girls or because they think they're not good enough to do it," Lee said.

Still, while there are fewer women in science and technology, there are 
more women in college overall. To Hyde and her colleagues, that helps 
explain why girls consistently score lower on average on the SAT: More 
of them take the test, which is needed to get into college. The 
highest-performing students of both genders take the test, but more 
girls lower on the achievement scale take it, skewing the average.

For the class of 2007, the latest figures available, boys scored an 
average of 533 on the math section of the SAT, compared with 499 for 
girls.

On the ACT, another test on which girls lag slightly, the gender gap 
disappeared in Colorado and Illinois once state officials required all 
students to take the test.

As Hyde and her colleagues looked across the data for states' testing, 
they found something they didn't expect: In most states they reviewed, 
and at most grade levels, there weren't any questions that involved 
complex problem-solving, an ability needed to succeed in high levels of 
science and math. If tests don't assess these reasoning skills, they may 
not be taught, putting American students at a disadvantage to students 
in other countries with more challenging tests, the researchers said.

That might be a glaring omission, said Stephen Camarata, a Vanderbilt 
University professor who has researched the issue but was not involved 
in the study.

"We need to know that, if our measures aren't capturing some aspect of 
math that's important," Camarata said. "Then we can decide whether 
there's an actual male or female advantage."

A panel of experts convened by the Education Department recommended that 
state tests be updated to emphasize critical thinking.

While some states already have fairly rigorous tests, "we can do a 
better job," said Kerri Briggs, the department's assistant secretary for 
elementary and secondary education.

"If we're going to be globally competitive, we need students who are 
able to do higher-level math skills," she said.

Back in 1992, Barbie stopped saying math was hard after Mattel received 
complaints from, among others, the American Association of University 
Women.

So far, while her current career choices include baby doctor and 
veterinarian � and Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, too � Barbie has not 
branched out into technology or engineering.