Global Sex Differences in Test Score Variability

Machin, Stephen; Pekkarinen, Tuomas

doi:10.1126/science.1162573

Cited by 176 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

131

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…While some studies show that boys did better than girls in math in the 1990s (Marks, 2008;Penner, 2008), more recent data do not support this conclusion (Else-Quest et al, 2010;Kane and Mertz, 2012;Lindberg et al, 2010).However, greater male variability in mathematical test scores that we find with the Russian data is a more robust phenomenon reported in many other studies (Hedges and Nowell, 1995;Hyde et al, 2008;Machin and Pekkarinen, 2008).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 38%

“…However, she mostly discussed the potential gender bias in the SAT-M test. Later analyses by Hyde et al (2008), Lindberg et al (2010) and Machin and Pekkarinen (2008) strongly support the hypothesis that boys have more variable test scores.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 67%

“…Lindberg et al (2010) reported the average VR of 1.08. Machin and Pekkarinen (2008) analysed cross-national data from PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS and documented greater variance for boys virtually in all countries (with minor exceptions), both for mathematics and reading. Strand et al (2006) demonstrated greater male variability on the tests of verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning and quantitative reasoning, using data on 320,000 school pupils in the UK aged 11-12 years.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

School context and gender differences in mathematical performance among school graduates in Russia

Bessudnov

Макаров

2015

International Studies in Sociology of Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Gender differences in mathematical performance have received considerable scrutiny in the fields of sociology, economics, and psychology. We analyse a large data set of high school graduates who took a standardized mathematical test in Russia in 2011 (n=738,456) and find no substantial difference in mean test scores across boys and girls. However, boys have a greater variance of scores and are more numerous at the top of the distribution. We apply quantile regression to model the association between school characteristics and gender differences in test scores throughout the distribution of test scores. Male advantage in test scores, particularly at the top of the distribution, is concentrated in cities and in the schools with an advanced curriculum.In other high schools, especially in the countryside, gender differences in all parts of the distribution are small. We suggest several mechanisms based on selection and school effects that account for our findings.

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 38%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 67%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

School context and gender differences in mathematical performance among school graduates in Russia

Bessudnov

Макаров

2015

International Studies in Sociology of Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although not without controversy (3), robust sex difference in cognition have also been documented during childhood and adolescence-language tasks tend to favor females (4) and visuospatial tasks tend to favor males (5)-which may contribute to sex differences in related scholastic aptitude tests (6). Understanding the mechanisms of cognitive and behavioral sex differences is therefore not only of theoretical importance in the neuroscientific study of psychopathology and cognitive variation, but may also have practical implication for our public health, criminal justice, and educational systems.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinally mapping the influence of sex and androgen signaling on the dynamics of human cortical maturation in adolescence

Raznahan

Lee

Stidd

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

248

197

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Humans have systematic sex differences in brain-related behavior, cognition, and pattern of mental illness risk. Many of these differences emerge during adolescence, a developmental period of intense neurostructural and endocrine change. Here, by creating "movies" of sexually dimorphic brain development using longitudinal in vivo structural neuroimaging, we show regionally specific sex differences in development of the cerebral cortex during adolescence. Within cortical subsystems known to underpin domains of cognitive behavioral sex difference, structural change is faster in the sex that tends to perform less well within the domain in question. By stratifying participants through molecular analysis of the androgen receptor gene, we show that possession of an allele conferring more efficient functioning of this sex steroid receptor is associated with "masculinization" of adolescent cortical maturation. Our findings extend models first established in rodents, and suggest that in humans too, sex and sex steroids shape brain development in a spatiotemporally specific manner, within neural systems known to underpin sexually dimorphic behaviors.

show abstract

“…For example, different studies showed that boys are more successful than girls in PISA mathematics test (Areepattamannil, 2014;Liu & Wilson, 2009;Machin & Pekkarinen, 2008). In PISA 2012, boys performed better than girls by 11 points; out of 65 countries, in 38 countries boys performed better than girls whereas in 5 countries girls performed better than boys (OECD, 2014a).…”

Section: Differential Item Functioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Propensity Score Matching Helps to Understand Sources of DIF and Mathematics Performance Differences of Indonesian, Turkish, Australian, and Dutch Students in PISA

Arıkan¹,

Vijver²,

Yağmur³

2018

International Journal of Research in Education and Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examined Differential Item Functioning (DIF) and the size of cross-cultural performance differences in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 mathematics data before and after application of propensity score matching. The mathematics performance of Indonesian, Turkish, Australian, and Dutch students on released items was compared. Matching variables were gender, an index of economic, social and cultural status, and opportunity to learn, in exact, nearest neighbor, and optimal matching. Logistic regression and structural equation modeling were used to identify DIF. If propensity scores were used in the DIF analyses as performance predictors, much less DIF was found than in the original data; similarly, when in tests of country differences in mathematics performance, propensity scores were used as covariates, effect sizes of tests of country differences were reduced substantially. We concluded that propensity scoring provided us with a new tool to better control sources of DIF and country differences in PISA mathematics performance.

show abstract

Global Sex Differences in Test Score Variability

Cited by 176 publications

References 11 publications

School context and gender differences in mathematical performance among school graduates in Russia

School context and gender differences in mathematical performance among school graduates in Russia

Longitudinally mapping the influence of sex and androgen signaling on the dynamics of human cortical maturation in adolescence

Propensity Score Matching Helps to Understand Sources of DIF and Mathematics Performance Differences of Indonesian, Turkish, Australian, and Dutch Students in PISA

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About