Are boys really better at "geeky" subjects than girls?

[Syterion]

Can anyone tell me how the IB works? Are there any statistics to show performance? I'm really interested in how the UK GCSE and A-Levels compare to different schooling systems.
And can any Americans tell me how high-school performance is graded? How do you guys apply for university? I have the vague idea that you have some kinda credit system?

The American educational system doesn't matter. All we do at school is get sexually harassed by teachers.

Seriously, We have a few national tests like the SAT's and ACT's that might compare to your GCSEblahblahblah stuff. There are also AP's(Advanced Placement) tests that are meant to test what a college first semester (or sometimes two semester) course would teach you and if you get a high enough grade, you can opt-out of that class.You can find info on them pretty easily.

You apply for college by filling out an application and paying the fee. I don't know what else to say. There is usually a credit system at colleges to graduate, but it doesn't really have anything to so with the applying part.

IB is International Baccalaureate. It's like AP courses for midwesterners.

Search for AP tests online to find out more, they're proabably the test you want to find out mroe about, since it's divided into subjects.

 

[mdwh]

I agree that it's wrong to assume that boys are necessarily better at maths/compsci/science than girls.

A better explanation for why boys may favour geek subjects is not related to how good they are in comparison to girls, but how good they are compared with other subjects. If boys are more likely to be better at maths/etc, and girls are more likely to be better at arty/etc subjects, then that would explain fewer girls going to study geeky subjects, independent of how good boys actually are in comparison to girls. Is this the case?

The fact that girls are outperforming boys at GCSE is an issue with all subjects, not specifically "geek" subjects, and it's unclear what the cause is. Remember some time ago, boys were outperforming girls, and people said that the system was unfairly biased towards boys (eg, because boys do better under pressure in exams). Now the system has been gradually changed to be more suited towards girls (eg, more emphasis on coursework), and big surprise, girls are outperforming boys - and now people say it's because boys are stupid, don't put in the effort or get distracted ;p

Perhaps we should have a flexible system more suitable for all... (eg, a choice of coursework or exams) - though I realise this is difficult to implement.

Actually, i'm really appalled at the Single Award science results! Single Science is already the easiest of the science courses, and STILL only 20% get C grades and above for it? Whoa.

This isn't really surprising - most people take Double Science, and Single Science is only taken by those people not good at science (at least, that was the case in my school), so it's natural that the results would be much lower compared with Double Science (or other subjects in general).

More boys are taking these subjects than girls are, in particular physics and computing, where the m:f ratio is roughly 3:1. Chemistry is the most even with only slightly more girls. This leads me to think that girls who actually take an interest take the science and tech, and so probably work harder, rather than relying on their natural ability.

Yes, if more boys are taking the subject than girls, it becomes harder to compare them. For example, what would the results be if we shaved off the bottom 2/3s of the boys?

Of course, it is still true that the boys are disproportionately represented - the correct ratio of boys to girls should be such that they get equal grades on average. But it's easy to see how things can end up overcompensating - as soon as more boys are taking a subject, it becomes seen as a male subject, and which encourages more boys but puts off girls.

 

[feline_dacat]

How do universities decide whether to take you on in their course?

 

[searcheagle]

How do universities decide whether to take you on in their course?

To apply for College, you send them a your High School Transcript, take a college bound exam (the SAT or ACT), fill out an application, and other information (portfolios, work samples, awards, etc) with which they analyze whether they want you in their school or not. Ivy Schools (or America's School of elites-Harvard, Yale, Penn, Standford, etc) can pick students they want. Usually, they get Students who don't know what they letter "B" looks like on a report card, can't run the mile in over 4 minutes, and are involved in 6 extracircular (Non-academic) activities. From there on down, there are schools which are less and less chosy. (Check out review.com for their Top 337.) Whether a school is public or private is no longer important with refrence to prestige.

The least competitive ones are the so-called community colleges. These accept everyone who wants in from High School students (like I was when I started my college career) to College students who only want an Associate's (2 year degree) or want to transfer to another school and save some money to Working Adults who have decided to return to school.

Generally, the more competive the school, the more expensive it is. Community college can cost as little a $2-3 thousand a year and ivies can cost as much as $40,000-50,000/year.

After the student has applied to thier colleges, they see who accepted them. I applied to 4 schools. If you were accepted, they give you an scholarship package. The more attractive you are to a school, the more attractive the scholarship package. Then you have to decide, do you want to go a highly competitive, prestigious school and pay a lot of money or go to a less competitive, prestigious school and get a nice scholarship package (I picked this cheaper one).

Once a college accepts you, frequently a department has to accept you as well. This is done usually based on your High School or College GPA (Grade Point Average) or your SAT score. If a school has a highly competive department, you may find yourself able to get into the university but not into the department.

 

[searcheagle]

I think another element to take into consideration is the young boy who is curious and can not concentrate because he is too busy exploring the classroom. It is well established that more boys then girls challenge the teachers and frequently this has negative effects. In classroom, a boy will defy a teacher by not his name on the paper. This results in punishment of a lower grade for the class because of the action. I remember hearing that in class.

While there are statistically more boy geniuses than girl geniuses, far more boys than girls are found at the very bottom of the academic ranks. School districts from Massachusetts to Minnesota to California report that boys are withdrawing from the life of schools, and girls are taking over.

“Girls are being told, 'Go for it, you can do it. Go for it, you can do it.' They are getting an immense amount of support,” he says. “Boys hear that the way to shine is athletically. And boys get a lot of mixed messages about what it means to be masculine and what it means to be a student. Does being a good student make you a real man? I don't think so… It is not cool.”

“To make a class that's 50/50, they're practicing affirmative action on behalf of boys,” says Thompson. “Girls are so outperforming boys in school right now, one statistician said he took it out to its absurd endpoint and said at the present trend, the last man to get his bachelor's degree will do so in 2068.”

Even if that never happens, the trend is ominous. Boys are falling further behind girls in reading and writing, and still, there's no public outcry the way there was for girls, and we wanted to find out why.

“All the rhetoric in the gender equity movement is about how schools shortchange girls. There was almost nothing about how we could reach out to boys,” says Christina Hoff Sommers, a former college professor, now at the American Enterprise Institute. She blames the lack of attention to boys' problems on feminists.

“In order to advance girls, they exaggerated how vulnerable girls were, and they understated the needs of boys. They depicted boys as ... the privileged beneficiaries of a patriarchal society that oppresses women, demeans them and trains young men to be sexist, misogynists,” she says.

Sommers also accuses women teachers of favoring girls over boys. She says they reward classroom behavior that girls find easier, like sitting still, and punish boys for being, well, boys.

“If boys are obstreperous and high-spirited and competitive, which most of them are, this is seen as behavior which is not tolerated. They see that as an expression of a toxic masculinity,” she says.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/31/60minutes/main527678.shtml

Many studies consistently show that the average IQ scores of men and women are equivalent. Although most of the common tests, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), are intentionally designed to weed out a sex bias, some gender-specific findings persist.

Men tend to perform better on spatial questions.
Women outpace men on reading and other verbal skills.

Men score more at the extremes of IQ scoring—both high and low. More men than women test at the lower end of the IQ scale, and also at the very top. This is consistent with the membership of American Mensa, Ltd, a society whose members test in the top 2% of the population on a standard IQ test. The group reports that 65% of its general membership is male, and 35% female. Yet the Association for Women in Mathematics claims that women earn half of all undergraduate mathematics degrees and one-third of PhD degrees in math.

Similarly, men consistently outscore women by an average of 35 points on the math portion of the college SAT test. Interestingly, some studies show that boys and girls test about the same in math in elementary school. The girls fall behind only later in life, so that by the time senior year in high school arrives, the boys test higher on the SAT. Researchers continue to study whether these findings—and those like it—are the result of gender differences, environmental influences, social pressures, personal beliefs and values, or a combination of all and more.

http://www.swedish.org/111149.cfm

Just some food for thought on this subject.

 

[stormbind]

I can just about recall my GCSE exams and they (inc. maths & science) did emphasise memory. There was not much to calculate. It was a case of remembering the written rules.

I can just about recall my A Level exams (maths & mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology). These were essentially open-book, in that the rules were written on the inside cover. To an extent, this approach emphasises IQ more than memory.

However, all examples depended heavily on coursework, which proved to be the bane of my A Level results. Incidentally, Oxford University offered an all-exam alternative to the common A Level.

How do girls and boys compare in the Oxford University entrance exam?

I recall the grading of coursework being exceedingly corrupted, especially during the GCSE years.

Personally, I feel the British system of replacing traditional exams with coursework (completed at home, over any length of time, by parents and teachers) to be somewhat counter-productive.

How did girls and boys compare in the O Level results?

 

[wit>trope]

These are pulled from the Guardian website for GCSE results in 2002, percentage of C grades or above.

That's not a good way to do science. You can't compare the percentage of C grades or above because that doesn't give you the whole picture.

For example, if I were to compare the percentage of men who have an IQ lower than 80 versus the percentage of women who have an IQ lower than 80 then guess what? The percentage will be signficiantly HIGHER for men than for women ... and from this using your kind of methodology you might conclude that men's IQ is lower than women's IQ when actually men's IQ and women's IQ are about the same (or even men's IQ is slightly higher).

Specific to this case a reason why the comparison is bound to give unreliable results is because statistically there are more men on both the upper and lower end of the IQ bell curve than there are women -- IOW, women's IQs tend to be more clustered towards the average IQ of 100 whereas men's IQs in comparison are less clustered towards the average IQ of 100, resulting in both more geniuses and more mentally ******** men. So it would be expected just from these facts that more men than women do less than a C in school.

Also, the grades aren't really a good indicator of ability in the first place. To illustrate from American data, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_intelligence) women usually tend to have higher GPAs (grade average) than men but still men at the same time usually tend to do better on standardized tests like the SAT -- especially on the math portion but also contrary to popular belief usually on the verbal portion also (though in a few years women have done better). So you have grades telling you one thing and the standardized SAT (scholastic aptitude test) telling you another. One reasonable hypothesis is that teachers are biased towards girls ... maybe they would feel more badly about failing or giving a D to a girl than they would about failing or giving a D to a guy because they perceive, rightly or wrongly, that girls are more emotionally vulnerable. Another hypothesis might be that girls don't slack off as much as guys and that girls are more studious (i.e. do their homework, attend class, etc. -- since these can be part of the grade)

 

[feline_dacat]

That's not a good way to do science. You can't compare the percentage of C grades or above because that doesn't give you the whole picture.

For example, if I were to compare the percentage of men who have an IQ lower than 80 versus the percentage of women who have an IQ lower than 80 then guess what? The percentage will be signficiantly HIGHER for men than for women ... and from this using your kind of methodology you might conclude that men's IQ is lower than women's IQ when actually men's IQ and women's IQ are about the same (or even men's IQ is slightly higher).

I picked the percentages of C grades and above cos that's the "pass" mark for GCSEs although if I'm honest, I didn't give it much thought - maybe i should've drawn up some normal distribution graphs and claimed it was statistics revision Man, i hate doing stats problems though... *grumble*

Specific to this case a reason why the comparison is bound to give unreliable results is because statistically there are more men on both the upper and lower end of the IQ bell curve than there are women -- IOW, women's IQs tend to be more clustered towards the average IQ of 100 whereas men's IQs in comparison are less clustered towards the average IQ of 100, resulting in both more geniuses and more mentally ******** men. So it would be expected just from these facts that more men than women do less than a C in school.

Ooh~ i didn't know that about the distributions of IQs, that's quite interesting! Do you know of any articles on this?

Also, the grades aren't really a good indicator of ability in the first place. To illustrate from American data, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_intelligence) women usually tend to have higher GPAs (grade average) than men but still men at the same time usually tend to do better on standardized tests like the SAT -- especially on the math portion but also contrary to popular belief usually on the verbal portion also (though in a few years women have done better). So you have grades telling you one thing and the standardized SAT (scholastic aptitude test) telling you another. One reasonable hypothesis is that teachers are biased towards girls ... maybe they would feel more badly about failing or giving a D to a girl than they would about failing or giving a D to a guy because they perceive, rightly or wrongly, that girls are more emotionally vulnerable. Another hypothesis might be that girls don't slack off as much as guys and that girls are more studious (i.e. do their homework, attend class, etc. -- since these can be part of the grade)

That bit about teachers treating girls and boys differently is certainly true from what i have seen. Since i was actually interested in science and technology, I was always encouraged to do better than the boys, especially in my GCSE technology course... but then my teacher would say things like "Come on, you're not going to let a girl beat you, right?" to get the boys to work harder. I didn't think that it such a strong bias that he's not mark me down if my work was rubbish, though!

I can just about recall my GCSE exams and they (inc. maths & science) did emphasise memory. There was not much to calculate. It was a case of remembering the written rules.

I can just about recall my A Level exams (maths & mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology). These were essentially open-book, in that the rules were written on the inside cover. To an extent, this approach emphasises IQ more than memory.

However, all examples depended heavily on coursework, which proved to be the bane of my A Level results. Incidentally, Oxford University offered an all-exam alternative to the common A Level.

How do girls and boys compare in the Oxford University entrance exam?

I recall the grading of coursework being exceedingly corrupted, especially during the GCSE years.

Personally, I feel the British system of replacing traditional exams with coursework (completed at home, over any length of time, by parents and teachers) to be somewhat counter-productive.

How did girls and boys compare in the O Level results?

I have to say, i wasn't a big fan of coursework at A-Level - it just didn't interest me at the time, but i was so distracted at that time with various personal issues that I screwed up the second year immensely *wince* Also, all the coursework deadlines coincided with each other too, meaning that it was just about impossible to spread out the work for all three/four courseworks!

@Searcheagle

Thanks for those links and snippets! They're interesting. I hate the way that looks on the screen - it doesn't look like i'm being sincere at all... sorry! That wasn't sarcastic, i promise

 

[Mise]

You can't compare the percentage of C grades or above because that doesn't give you the whole picture.

It all depends on what picture you want. No-one has defined what "geeky" or "better" is in this context, so no-one can make any judgements based on the evidence.

 

[searcheagle]

@Searcheagle

Thanks for those links and snippets! They're interesting. I hate the way that looks on the screen - it doesn't look like i'm being sincere at all... sorry! That wasn't sarcastic, i promise

I'm glad you appreciated them. I found them very thought provoking. Is our war for girls being gained at the expense of boys? Interesting question.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Just because they are getting better grades doesn't mean they are actually better at the subject. Grades in school are not determined by your knowledge of the subject, but how you act in class, whether you do your homework whole-heartedly, and other things like that.

That's true, I knew some kids in high school that were really smart but their grades were terrible because they didn't give a, well you know, about doing homework. Just because they didn't want to waste their free time doing that worthless stuff.

 

[Fifty]

As has been stated, grades have little to do with inherent ability, and thus do not make a very good picture of gender differences.

One important thing to note is that women tend to have steeper bell-curves among traits, which means less women at the extreme low as well as the extreme high of ability. So most women are middle of the pack.

Men have more stretched-out bell curves of ability, meaning more extreme geniuses as well as more extreme idiots. While men are more likely for dyslexia, learning disabilities, and mental retardation, there are also 13x more men who score above a 700 on the math section of the SAT than there are women.

Men aren't better than women in all areas of math, however. While men are better at mental imagery and mathematical word problems (which helps to account for their increased success in higher math, physics, and engineering), women are better at mathematical calculation.

 

[wit>trope]

Ooh~ i didn't know that about the distributions of IQs, that's quite interesting! Do you know of any articles on this?

Other than the wikipedia one I linked, I don't know any more off the top of my head ... and none of the ones I would know about would say anything much more than the wikipedia one (on the issue of differently shaped distribution)

That bit about teachers treating girls and boys differently is certainly true from what i have seen. Since i was actually interested in science and technology, I was always encouraged to do better than the boys, especially in my GCSE technology course... but then my teacher would say things like "Come on, you're not going to let a girl beat you, right?" to get the boys to work harder. I didn't think that it such a strong bias that he's not mark me down if my work was rubbish, though!

This is just pure speculation on my part but I think there's all kinds of bias that teachers have -- and not all of it is sex based. For example, I bet if a student came from an economically disadvantaged background that the teacher would give them better grades, if they knew about it. Maybe what they should do is have the grading be "blind" like submissions to some academic journals are blind ... meaning that you don't put your name on the paper or test, at least not to see, so the teacher doesn't know whose paper or test or homework he is grading. OTOH maybe the teacher SHOULD take into account who it is when grading ... maybe what's good for a girl and what's good for a guy is different -- I don't mean different standards but like maybe an idea that seems reasonable to girls would not seem reasonable to guys and vice versa and so if the teacher doesn't understand the psychology of the opposite sex, he should take that into account

 

[wit>trope]

One important thing to note is that women tend to have steeper bell-curves among traits, which means less women at the extreme low as well as the extreme high of ability. So most women are middle of the pack.

Men have more stretched-out bell curves of ability, meaning more extreme geniuses as well as more extreme idiots. While men are more likely for dyslexia, learning disabilities, and mental retardation, there are also 13x more men who score above a 700 on the math section of the SAT than there are women.

Do you know why this is? Obviously there must be some kind of physical explanation (I doubt mental retardation is caused by social factors!), but what is it? We know about differences in the physical structure of the male and female brain, but do we know the exact mechanism that produces this specific difference?

Men aren't better than women in all areas of math, however. While men are better at mental imagery and mathematical word problems (which helps to account for their increased success in higher math, physics, and engineering), women are better at mathematical calculation.

When you say "mathematical calculation" are you talking about simple addition and subtraction and multiplication and division or more advanced calculation like Calculus? I assme the former, but I wanted to make sure

 

[feline_dacat]

As has been stated, grades have little to do with inherent ability, and thus do not make a very good picture of gender differences.

What is a better way to test ability? These exams are designed to demonstrate the ability, understanding and knowlege of the student in the chosen area - its not fault of the exams that people don't take an interest nor its it fault of the exams that people don't try.
However, i have yet to find a better quantative way to show ability - these exams are important ones and we prepare for it over 2 years. If people are going to try their best, they're going to do it for these exams cos otherwise its a blemish on your education records. There are psychometric tests that some employers use to evaluate the ability and personality of an individual but they're just as easy [if not easier] to study for or to blag your way through. In fact, my uni did a 1 day course on how blag these tests to seem more employable. But they don't demonstrate ability in specific fields as it only tests the basic principles such as numerical ability and verbal ability etc...

Men have more stretched-out bell curves of ability, meaning more extreme geniuses as well as more extreme idiots. While men are more likely for dyslexia, learning disabilities, and mental retardation, there are also 13x more men who score above a 700 on the math section of the SAT than there are women.

Men aren't better than women in all areas of math, however. While men are better at mental imagery and mathematical word problems (which helps to account for their increased success in higher math, physics, and engineering), women are better at mathematical calculation.

Again, can you point in in the direction of SAT statistics? You Americans keep pulling out these stats out the air, but they must come from somewhere. Also, is 700 the pass mark or the generally accepted "high" score?

 

[wit>trope]

Again, can you point in in the direction of SAT statistics? You Americans keep pulling out these stats out the air, but they must come from somewhere. Also, is 700 the pass mark or the generally accepted "high" score?

I think the statistics originate with the actual organization that conducts the SATs. They are called ETS -- Educational Testing Service IIRC. There's no "pass mark." SATs are just used by colleges for admissions purposes. So the higher your SATs the more likely that a college would accept you for admission. The math portion is out of 800 and the verbal portion is out of 800. I don't know what the averages are but 700 in either portion would be well above average.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

Pah we are still better at important things like fighting, running and jumping.

Pah, pah, pah! Better my... Nothing sizzles like a female apache pilot.

All this talk of men being better than women, women being better than men. Can't we all just get along. Statistics are just that...statistics.

 

[aaglo]

I dont mind, and ironing too please.

Man ain't no man if he can't iron his own shirt (for the record: generally women don't know how to iron men's shirts).

 

[Akka]

Men are more geared toward science (particularly math) than women.
Women, on the other hand, tends to be better in social situation and litterate skills.
Additionnally, men tends to compete, while girls tends to cooperate.

School is a primordial social environment, which aims to make peopel reach a certain level. It doesn't aim to make geniuses.
As such, women, with their better social skills and reduced aggressivity compared to men, tends to do better.

But on the opposite, there is an overwhelming majority of men in the "science geniuses", particularly on math. And men, in general, also have a much more "spread-out" repartition when it comes to intelligence rating, while women are much more stable and "concentrated".
In other words : there is much more stupid men than stupid women, but there is much more men geniuses than women.