Stephen Black refers to the meta-analysis by S. M. Lindburg et al of data from relatively recent comparative studies of gender differences in mathematical attainment. (See below.) I don't have time to look into this right now, but my recollection of some of the individual studies (and as far as I can see it applies to this meta-analysis) is that they relate to results achieved by high school age children. For more than one reason, I don't think this research justifies the conclusions that seem to be being drawn.
The mathematics in question is a long long way from the high-powered mathematics that distinguishes the really exceptional from the run-of-the-mill talented. This is not to mention the issue of the deterioration of standards in mathematics exams at school level that undoubtedly has occurred in the last three decades in the UK – and, I gather, this may well be the case in the States. In this context it is not irrelevant that as soon as coursework was dropped from UK GCSE mathematics (16 year-olds) the small lead that girls had achieved in mathematics public exam results in recent years was immediately reversed. The point is that there is good evidence (which I have personally experienced as a teacher) that, as a generalisation, girls are prepared to spend more time on work done at home than are boys, who are more inclined to leave the work until the last moment. (There are other issues related to the type of mathematics examinations at school level in recent times that I shall not go into here. :-) ) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org ---------------------- From: sbl...@ubishops.ca Subject: Big news on the Larry Summers front Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:17:26 -0400 What, you thought maybe I was gonna talk about politics? This is a psychology list! Dr. Summers was rash enough to speculate, while President of some obscure place called Havahd, about the finding that few women are to be found among the highest reaches of the hard sciences, such as in the Department of Mathematics at Harvard. One of his speculations was that there was more innate aptitude at the high end of the bell curve for men than women. We all know what happened next. But if you missed it, a concise summary can be found here: http://media.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/?p=145 The point was that while there may not have been a difference in average ability, there was in variability (at both tails). As the Swarthmore essay notes, a well-known researcher, Janet Hyde "partially" confirmed Summers. Not any more, she doesn't. Here's the abstract from Psychological Bulletin, just published. Lindberg, Sara M.; Hyde, Janet Shibley; Petersen, Jennifer L.; Linn, Marcia C. New trends in gender and mathematics performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 136(6), Nov 2010, 1123-1135. Abstract In this article, we use meta-analysis to analyze gender differences in recent studies of mathematics performance. First, we meta-analyzed data from 242 studies published between 1990 and 2007, representing the testing of 1,286,350 people. Overall, d = 0.05, indicating no gender difference, and variance ratio = 1.08, indicating nearly equal male and female variances. Second, we analyzed data from large data sets based on probability sampling of U.S. adolescents over the past 20 years: the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, the Longitudinal Study of American Youth, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Effect sizes for the gender difference ranged between -0.15 and +0.22. Variance ratios ranged from 0.88 to 1.34. Taken together, these findings support the view that males and females perform similarly in mathematics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) And just when Summers thought it might be safe to go back to Harvard. Stephen -------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca --------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=6268 or send a blank email to leave-6268-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
