Filtered Out, but Not by Skill: The Gender Gap in Pursing Mathematics at a High-Stakes Exam

Abstract

The present paper concerns the gender gap in pursuing mathematics at high stakes matriculation exams in Poland. Results of the optional Extended Exam in Mathematics (EEM) serve as the main criterion in entering tertiary education in majority of technical and engineering majors and, therefore, the exam works as an important filter for future career paths. We investigate whether the wide, gross difference between men and women in the propensity to take EEM can be mostly explained by an underlying skill difference, school effects, or other non-cognitive factors. We also test a skill immunization hypothesis which predicts that the gender gap declines at higher levels of mathematical skill. For those purposes we use official data from the 2016 matriculation exams covering the complete cohort of a quarter of a million students in more than 5000 schools. The results show that with skill and school effects roughly held constant, women are still much less likely to take EEM and the gender gap does not narrow on the upper tail of performance in mathematics. Furthermore, higher verbal skill draws women away from pursuing mathematics more strongly than it draws away men. These combined results imply that non-cognitive factors play a key role in self-selection processes and that STEM majors are at higher risk of losing mathematically gifted women than mathematically gifted men. Keywords Mathematics. Exit exams. Skill. Gender gap. STEM. High school. Poland. School effect Although women constitute the majority of students in many countries, their presence in technology and engineering is relatively low (Cheryan 2012). Poland is not an exception. The share of women in universities in 2015 was 68% whereas in technical universities it was just 36%. The distribution between majors was even more unbalanced; for example, 87% of students in computer sciences were men. The critical filter for entering science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) majors is mathematics (Sells 1980; Watt et al. 2017). This implies that the gender gap in STEM is at least partly a derivative of the gender gap in pursuing mathematics. Many studies show that this gap has an attitudinal basis and cannot be entirely attributed to skill differences. Researchers link it particularly with a complex psychological syndrome consisting of lower mathematics self-esteem, worries about failure, mathematics anxiety and stereotype threat. It has been argued that those factors, at least to some extent, mediate women's avoidance of entering mathematics-oriented majors (

Luka płci w edukacji. Wpływ społeczeństwa, ekonomii i kultury na wybory edukacyjne kobiet i mężczyzn

“…To właśnie poziom wiedzy ucznia powinien decydować o przystąpieniu do tego egzaminu -im umiejętności w danym zakresie są wyższe, tym większe jest prawdopodobieństwo wyboru trudniejszego egzaminu. Analizy wyników matur potwierdzają tę hipotezę i wskazują, że lepsze wyniki z matematyki uzyskane przez uczniów i uczennice na poziomie podstawowym zwiększały szansę na to, że przystąpią do matury rozszerzonej (Zawistowska i Sadowski, 2019). Jednak płeć istotnie wpływała na te wybory -po uwzględnieniu wyniku z poziomu podstawowego prawdopodobieństwo, że dziewczęta przystąpią do egzaminu na poziomie rozszerzonym było mniejsze.…”

“…Podobną zależność można odnotować również wśród polskich maturzystów. Dobre wyniki egzaminu z języka polskiego mocnej obniżały szanse kobiet niż mężczyzn na przystąpienie do matury rozszerzonej z matematyki (Zawistowska i Sadowski, 2019).…”

Analysis of Student's Critical Thinking Ability Based on Gender

“…Rodriguez, et al [14] conclude that: (1) in most countries, girls in grade 4 show a lower self-concept in mathematics, although the effect of mathematical achievement is taken into account; (2) not only in countries where girls performed less well in mathematics than boys, but also in countries where girls performed more or less well than boys, girls viewed their mathematical abilities more negatively compared to boys. Zawistowska and Sadowski [22] showed that women are distracted from mathematics-related employment by a relatively low likelihood of alternate track failure.…”