Math Scores Are in for Boys versus Girls

Today the news covered the latest on boys' math scores. It seems girls and boys have roughly the same average scores on state math tests, but researchers have reported that boys excelled or failed more often. This news is according to a Science journal study that examined the scores from seven million students who took statewide math tests - grades two through 11 in 10 states between the years 2005 and 2007.

As I have covered before in my blog and also on my education focused website, roccobasile.org, this is a long standing debate about gender difference in aptitude for mathematics. There's been much speculation through the years about why here were so few women involved in science, engineering and math.

In the 1970s and 1980s, studies regularly found that high- school boys tended to outperform girls, however, recent studies have found few differences, and the trends also show more women in science and engineering careers today.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, Berkeley, did not find significant overall differences between the boys' and girls' scores. What they did find, however, is that boys' scores were more variable than those of girls. More boys scored extremely well -- or extremely poorly -- than the girls. Girls were more likely to earn scores that were closer to the average scores for all students.

One measure of a top score is achieving the "99th percentile" -- scoring in the top 1% of all students, and the research proves that the boys were significantly more likely to reach this goal than the girls. One example - in Minnesota, 1.85 percent of white boys in the 11th grade reached the 99th percentile, compared with 0.9% of the girls. There were more than twice as many boys than girls among the top scorers.

No one knows the reason for the differences, and the results may not apply to all ethnic groups.
What is interesting is that the study found the boys consistently more variable than the girls, and this was in every state and every grade.