U.S. Male-Female SAT Math Scores: What Accounts for the Gap?
It’s well known that for the SAT mathematics test a) male high school students in the U.S. have higher scores on average than females, b) the gap is large and statistically significant (+30 points), and c) the male-female math test score gap has persisted over time, since at least 1971, and probably much longer (see chart above, data here from the Dept. of Education).
One explantion for the female-male math test score gap is summarized here by Janet Hyde et al.:
In 2007 the SAT was taken by 798,030 females but only 690,500 males, a gap of more than 100,000 people. Assuming that SAT takers represent the top portion of the performance distribution, this surplus of females taking the SAT means that the female group dips farther down into the performance distribution than does the male group. It is therefore not surprising that females, on average, score somewhat lower than males. The gender gap is likely in large part a sampling artifact.
In other words, it is only because more females than male take the SAT exam that males score higher on average than females, and if the sample sizes were more equal, the difference in mean math test scores would disappear.
Consistent with this explanation of the difference in mean math test scores would be the following assumption:
Ceteris paribus, if the number of females taking the math SAT exam relative to males (and female percentage of total) increases over time, the male-female math test score gap should INCREASE over time, since an increasing number of females (and increasing percent of total) taking the SAT should lower female mean math test scores over time relative to male math test scores. Reason? The increasing number of females taking the SAT will “dip further down into the performance distribution” over time.
Using Census Bureau data, the chart below shows that females taking the SAT exam as a percent of the total increased from 50% in 1975 to 53.6%, as the male percentage has decreased from 50% to 46.4% over that period (see chart below).
According to the reasoning above, as the number of females taking the SAT exam increased over time (along with the percent of total) relative to males, the mean female score should have decreased relative to the male mean score, and the male-female gap should be INCREASING over time, theoretically.
But that is exactly the opposite of what has actually been happening. The chart below shows that the male-female gap has actually been decreasing over time, even as more females took the test relative to males, from a high of 46 points in 1977 to a gap of 33 points in 2008.
Bottom Line: The gender gap appears to be more than just a sampling artifact, since the decreasing male-female math test score gap is exactly the opposite of what the Hyde et al. hypothesis would predict.
Additionally, if the number of females taking the test increases over time, the Hyde hypothesis would also predict a falling mean female math test score over time, when in fact we see the opposite: a rising female mean SAT math test score.
15 Responses to “U.S. Male-Female SAT Math Scores: What Accounts for the Gap?”
Leave a reply
- 5 Questions
- Britannica Top 10s
- From the Field
- Picture of the Day
- Science Up Front
- Special Features
- 2010 Year in Review
- American Civil War Sesquicentennial
- Book Excerpts
- Brave New Classroom 2.0
- California's Prop 19
- Diana & the Cult of Celebrity
- Environment Week 2011
- Founders & Faith
- How Now, Great Books?
- Learning & Literacy
- Multitasking
- Newspapers & the Net
- Reagan 100th Birthday Forum
- Reforming Uncle Sam
- September 11 attacks 10th anniversary
- Target Iran?
- The Obama Presidency
- Web 2.0
- Women's History Month 2011
- World at 7 Billion
- Your Brain Online
- 2010 Year in Review
[...] Visit Original Post Share and Enjoy: [...]
I’ve heard that boys’ SAT scores show a greater variability than girls’ scores do. That is, girls’ scores tend to cluster in the mid-range while boys are more likely to score at the two tail ends of the distribution. Roughly twice as many boys than girls score >750 on the math portion, and about 1.5x as many boys than girls score in the 700-750 range.
It could be related to a self-selection effect.
It would make sense to look at why are people going to university. Rank them not only by gender but discipline they intend to enter.
Girls heading into english departments are less likely to compare well on math tests to boys intending to enter computing science. The gap may track the distribution difference in discipline intentions across genders.
[...] U.S. Male-Female SAT Math Scores: What Accounts for the Gap? [...]
The difference could be how mathematic and science teachers nurture their male and female students. In one of my middle school math class, all the boys sat in the front center of the classroom, while all the girls sat in the side and back corner of the classroom.
By high school, when I took physics AP, there were 3 girls in my class to 25 boys. All the guys worked to together, and us girls never walked over to even say “hi.”
I think more studies need to be done to understand why women score low SAT math scores.
Crimson Wife repeats the oft-heard claim that boys are a disproportionate share of both high and low SAT scorers. Unfortunately only the high part of the claim is true. More than twice as many boys score 800 on the Math SAT as girls (6,928 vs. 3,124 in 2009), despite the fact that girl test takers outnumber boys by more than 100,000 (818,760 to 711,368). But more girls score the lowest possible score of 200 than boys (2,418 vs. 1,857). In fact, boys outnumber girls at every SAT Math score from 570 to 800, while girls outnumber boys at every score from 560 to 200. (See 2009 data table at http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/SAT-Math-Percentile-Ranks-2009.pdf).
Thus the trend is very broad and powerful. But the trend in itself tells us nothing about the underlying causes of the performance gap. Perhaps it’s mostly nature, perhaps it’s mostly nurture. Most likely it’s some complex mix of the two.
My own two cents: if boys’ statistical superiority on SAT Math is partly innate, that innate difference might be one of behavior rather than cognition. In other words, maybe boys aren’t inherently better at manipulating numbers or imagining spatial relations, but simply are more inclined toward behaviors that make them better students of mathematics (e.g. aggressive mechanical curiosity).
To put this in layman’s terms, this shows that girls are stupider than boys.
It really is revolting how people always have to make up excuses when scientific studies like these are published. This whole concept of equality, is basically like a religion that has been holding back scientific progress in certain areas for decades. Whenever a report is published that shows some kind of difference between genders or races, it’s the same mantra over and over. Why can’t we celebrate the differences between the people on this planet and accept that there are genetic differences between us, instead of automatically assuming that it’s all a result of the environment, gender stereotypes, nurture or some other sort of bias. Science is supposed to be about the pursuit of the truth, regardless of whether we like the answer or not. Studies on gender and race, however, are basically like a religion, where you already think you have the answer and refuse to change your view, regardless of what the facts tell you.
2 problems with the logic. 1. The SAT math test is DESIGNED to maintain the male-female gap (just as IQ tests are designed to yield equal scores for M & F). 2. If more girls are taking the SAT and scores have not dropped significantly, this could well mean that girls are actually doing better on average than in previous years. Mr. Perry’s analysis appears clouded by sexism.
I’m a mother to a boy and a girl. The boy was steered more towards science/math and the girl was steered more towards Language Arts even though test scores showed high in both areas for both kids. On the SAT, the boy scored lower than the girl I believe because she took more challenging math classes and had one excellent female math teacher (graduate of MIT in Math) that really believed in her.
Studies have been done and females typically are thought to have lower abilities in math then males, by their own parent. The parents who’s expectations that they live up to. Girls have also been rated higher in English abilities by their parents, this same study said that when a parent tells their child they are good at English they either (1) think they are good at English too or (2) believe that they have lower abilities than their teacher believe they have. (Eccles, 1990)No one does as well as they could when they have people believing in them less than they deserve.
Hey Mister, “I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves”. ~Mary Wollstonecraft
Correction * they believe that they have lower abilities in MATH than their teachers believe they have*
I think men, on average, are taught to be more competitive then women. That may account for the discrepancy.
I also believe that the SAT is geared towards males. Furthermore, “Mister,” your comment assumes that science is inherently objective. I’m obliged to point out some obvious logical fallacies in that argument; the absolute absurdity of a belief in the said “objectivity of science” is evidenced, not only in the philosophical spectrum but in the physical spectrum, by quantum mechanics (the double-slit experiment etc). Consider also that most great physicists of the 20th century (Albert Einstein, Sir Arthur Eddington, Erwin Schrodinger, Louis de Broglie, to name a few) would contend that objectivity is an ideal of science, not a reality. Yes, science attempts to pursue objective truth, and I will give it merit for that, but it, by principle, cannot achieve objectivity in life as we know it. One could also argue that religion seeks the truth just as purely as science does. Of course, there tends to be this assumption that religion is a weapon of manipulation over the masses, but let’s not pretend that science does not have any ulterior motives. Scientists use deductive reasoning just as religion does.
[...] It’s not just college. Girls ages 8-13 read on average a grade and a half better than boys. Girls have also reached parity levels with boys in math proficiency. Boys still out perform girls on the math section of the SAT test, but the gap is closing.” [...]