Gender Gap in STEM: A Cross-Sectional Study of Primary School Students’ Self-Perception and Test Anxiety in Mathematics

Abstract

Significant gender differences are 1 observed on primary school students' perception of self-efficacy 2 and test anxiety in mathematics. Girls perceive themselves to be 3 significantly worse than boys in mathematics and report higher 4 test anxiety toward mathematics exams. Gender differences in 5 self-efficacy become more pronounced as students grow up, and 6 test anxiety increases for all students. However, the present study 7 shows that teachers' do not perceive differences in self-efficacy 8 in mathematics between boys and girls. 9 Background: The low presence of women in science, technol-10 ogy, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) might be explained 11 by the attitude of young students toward mathematics. Different 12 studies show that girls are less interested in STEM areas than 13 boys during secondary school. A study on the reasons for this 14 fact pointed out that the early years of education can provide 15 a relevant insight to reverse the situation. 16 Research Questions: Is there any age-dependent gender differ-17 ence in primary school students in aspects related to mathemat-18 ics? Are teachers aware of students' perceptions? 19 Methodology: This work presents a study of over 2000 pri-20 mary school students (6-12 years old) and 200 teachers in 21 Aragón (Spain). The study consists of a survey on aspects that 22 influence the experience of female and male students with math-23 ematics and Spanish language for comparison purposes and 24 teacher's awareness of students' perception. 25 Findings: The present study shows that during primary school, 26 girls are more likely to experiment a negative attitude toward 27 mathematics than boys as they grow up, and teachers may not 28 perceive girls' situation.

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