"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." - W.B. Yeats  

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

Emily Halevy | CWK Producer

Why do girls think they do worse in math than boys?

“I guess because it’s very confusing and we don’t like complex things,” says 17-year-old Mia Williams.

“Cause we get distracted,” says 15-year-old Nora Click.

“Maybe because they were under pressure or they felt like they weren’t as good as everybody else, so they just didn’t do as well,” says 15-year-old Simone Brooks.

Simone seems to be on to something.

In a recent study by Indiana University, college students taking a math test were divided into groups.  In one, the students were reminded of how smarty they must be to attend a university that’s not easy to get into.

But another group was reminded of the stereotype: that females aren’t as good at math as males.

“When we introduced the idea that there might be gender differences in the exam, we saw some dramatic decreases in the women’s performance, but not in the men’s,” says psychologist Ken Carter, Ph.D.

In other words, when the girls thought about gender, and thought about stereotypes, they became anxious and their math scores went down.

“And because they’re fighting with that anxiety and distraction, sometimes even at an unconscious level, having to compete with that and do the task decreases their performance,” explains Carter.

That’s why, experts say, it’s important for girls to have a counterweight against gender stereotypes.  And that support comes from parents and teachers.

“Having a positive relationship, a trusting relationship with the parent and a trusting relationship with the teacher increases what they call the resiliency against that negative stereotype,” says Carter.

He says parents can warn their daughters about stereotypes - explain that they are often false and always generalizations.

You’ll hear this - that sometimes women don’t do well in math or there are no women in sciences,” he says, but you know you ‘re learning for you. ‘You like math, you like sciences, it’s fun for you’…encourage them in that way.”

What We Need To Know

A study published in the journal Developmental Psychology shows that parents are more likely to believe that math and science are less interesting and more difficult for daughters than for sons.  The Harvard University researchers based their findings on a survey of 52 boys and girls, aged 11 to 13, and their parents about science enjoyment and knowledge.  They also found that parents use different language when discussing science with boys and girls.  For example, fathers were more likely to use challenging or scientific language during science activities with their sons than with their daughters.
According to North Dakota State University’s (NDSU) Department of Psychology, the academic gender gap usually surfaces during adolescence.  It is at this time that girls become better at basic and computational skills while boys develop better mathematical reasoning and word problem solving skills.  Although no differences in grades exist, girls’ attitudes toward math and science become worse than boys.  In addition, girls begin to feel less competent about their math and science skills, and then their grades decline.
   
But why do these differences occur?  Experts at the NDSU offer the following reasons for the gender gap in science and math abilities:      

• More value is placed on girls’ compliance and boys’ assertiveness.
• Teachers spend more time responding to boys’ questions.
• Parents encourage boys to work independently and give more assistance to girls.  They also allow girls to participate in more off-task behaviors than boys.
• Parents and their children believe that math and science are more important for the careers of boys than girls.
• Parents underestimate their girls’ math abilities.
• Parents attribute girls’ math achievements to effort and boys’ math achievements to innate ability.
• Girls are taught that succeeding in math and science is not feminine.

Encouragement by parents is the first step in closing the gender gap in the areas of mathematics and science.  The National Network for Child Care suggests the following strategies to help foster a scientific or mathematical interest in your child:

• Provide your son or daughter with early math and science experiences.  Visit a local science museum.
• Think about the toys and activities you buy for your child.  Don’t forget that girls like chemistry sets, too.
• Find out what your child is doing in math and science at school.  Does he or she come home excited about a neat experiment he or she performed that day?
• When your child enters high school, encourage both boys and girls to take math and science.  It’s never too early to learn about college entrance requirements.
• Remind your child that both boys and girls can become anything they want to be – even a mathematician or scientist.

More and more, technology in the form of computers is being used inside and outside the classroom, especially in the fields of science and mathematics.  Therefore, it is important to ensure that your daughter receives the same exposure to computers as her male counterparts.  Experts in the Mathematics Department at Rice University offer the following tips for getting girls on computers:

• Girls like to join clubs and take classes with their friends.  A lone girl who likes computers is unlikely to join a computer club by herself.  So encourage your daughter to join clubs or classes with a group of friends.
• Girls need role models; they need to see women using computers competently and confidently.  Check out computing magazines – almost all of the photographs are of men.  On high school campuses, being a computer geek raises a male student’s coolness factor; it doesn’t have the same effect for girls.  To offset this, encourage your daughter’s teachers to invite female speakers to classes or clubs.  Also, ask them to share information about women who are leaders in the field.
• Make a conscious effort to encourage your daughter.  Challenge her to take the highest level of science, math and computing courses offered.
• When she asks, don’t tell.  Girls tend to ask for assistance when something won’t work.  Boys tend to try to figure it out.  Encourage your daughter to be daring with the computer.  It’s a real confidence booster when she succeeds.  Only step in if you really need to, and then try just a hint or help her to read the manual.
• Girls like to see what computers can do for them.  They see computers more as a tool and less as a toy.  Let your daughter type her papers on the computer, show her how to create Web pages or teach her to make a graph using a spreadsheet.
• Find out what percentage of the students in the highest level of computer science taught at your child’s school is girls.  If it’s not at least 50%, make the school aware of the problem.  Talk to counselors, teachers and other parents to enlist their help in encouraging the girls in your child’s school into the highest levels of computer science.

As a parent, your expectations can play a major role in your child’s academic development.  Math and science expectations for your child may be gender biased; the good news is that you can change this attitude over time. 

Resources

• Developmental Psychology
• Emory University
• Indiana University
• National Network for Child Care
• North Dakota State University’s Department of Psychology
• Rice University’s Department of Mathematics
• University of Wisconsin- Madison

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