Explaining the Gender Gap in Math Test Scores: The Role of Competition

O ver the past 60 years, there have been substantial improvements in the college preparation of female students and the college gender gap has changed dramatically. Goldin, Katz, and Kuziemko (2006) show that female high school students now outperform male students in most subjects and in particular on verbal test scores. The ratio of male to female college graduates has not only decreased, but reversed itself, and the majority of college graduates are now female. The gender gap in mathematics has also changed. The number of math and science courses taken by female high school students has increased and now the mean and standard deviation in performance on math test scores are only slightly larger for males than for females. Despite minor differences in mean performance, Hedges and Nowell (1995) show that many more boys than girls perform at the right tail of the distribution. This gender gap has been documented for a series of math tests including the AP calculus test, the mathematics SAT, and the quantitative portion of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). Over the past 20 years, the fraction of males to females who score in the top fi ve percent in high school math has remained constant at two to one (Xie and Shauman, 2003). Examining students who scored 800 on the math SAT in 2007, Ellison and Swanson (in this issue) also fi nd a two to one male–female ratio. Furthermore, they fi nd that the gender gap widens dramatically when examining the right tail Explaining the Gender Gap in Math Test Scores: The Role of Competition