On the leaky math pipeline: Comparing implicit math-gender stereotypes and math withdrawal in female and male children and adolescents.

Abstract

Many models assume that habitual human behavior is guided by spontaneous, automatic, or implicit processes rather than by deliberate, rule-based, or explicit processes. Thus, math-ability self-concepts and math performance could be related to implicit math-gender stereotypes in addition to explicit stereotypes. Two studies assessed at what age implicit math-gender stereotyping can be observed and what the relations between these stereotypes and math-related outcomes are in children and adolescents. Implicit math-gender stereotypes could already be detected with Implicit Association Tests (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) among 9-year-old girls. Adolescent girls showed stronger implicit gender stereotypes than adolescent boys, who, on average, did not reveal implicit gender-stereotypic associations. Girls also already showed an implicit affinity to language versus math at 9 years of age. In a regression analysis, implicit math-gender stereotypes predicted academic self-concepts, academic achievement, and enrollment preferences above and beyond explicit math-gender stereotypes for girls but (with the exception of achievement) not for boys. These findings suggest implicit gender stereotypes are an important factor in the dropout of female students from math-intensive fields.

Learning from video modeling examples: does gender matter?

“…Male students did show higher self-efficacy than female students, which was, however, not associated with higher learning outcomes. This may be a consequence of the stereotypical perception that males are more competent in math than female students (Steffens et al 2010), particularly among older students (Ceci et al 2014), although typically very few, if any, actual performance differences are found between the genders (Hyde et al 1990(Hyde et al , 2008. Although the findings on perceived confidence combined with performance suggest that male students may have overestimated their performance, the judgment of learning accuracy results show that gender did not affect how accurate participants were at judging their own skills (Question 3).…”

“…In contrast, no such effects were found for grade 4-6 students who observed a male or female model solving fraction problems . Although mathematical tasks are typically more associated with males than females (Forgasz et al 2004;Stewart-Williams 2002), young children do not yet seem to hold this association, which becomes stronger during adolescence (Steffens et al 2010; see also Ceci et al 2014). In other words, the 10 year olds in the study by Schunk et al (1987) More recent studies also suggest mixed findings, however.…”

Do social comparisons in academic settings relate to gender and academic self-confidence?

“…It has been suggested that men and women engage in different social comparisons because of self-stereotyping (Guimond et al 2007). Therefore, the differences in academic confidence may stem from the stereotype that men are better at numeracy and IT than women, a stereotype that has been shown to be evident in girls as young as 9 (Steffens et al 2010). Our research agrees with Locke's (2005) finding that women who make more upward social comparisons can have lower confidence, as we found that to be true in areas such as numeracy and hard IT skills, which may also be perceived as more masculine domains.…”

Investigating the Longer-Term Impact of the CREST Inquiry-Based Learning Programme on Student Self-regulated Processes and Related Motivations: Views of Students and Teachers

“…First, this study investigated the retention of developed self-regulation among adolescent students specifically within a science inquiry-based learning context, exposed as an area needing more research attention. Additionally, as major career and educational decisions are made during the school years (Steffens et al 2010), understanding the potential impact of strategies aimed at developing these self-regulated processes and related motivations on young students is an important contribution to knowledge in this field of educational research. The difficulty and complexity of creating environments that promote these processes among young students further highlights the importance of understanding how to appropriately support teachers in conducting these learning tasks with their students (Boekaerts and Niemivirta 2000).…”