Re: math equality in genders

[Alan Young <alanyoung@mchsi.com>]

On 7/24/08 4:56 PM, "gbracey1@verizon.net" <gbracey1@verizon.net> wrote:

> 
>   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.
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