IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/auu/dpaper/679.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Single-Sex Classes Affect Exam Scores? An Experiment in a Coeducational University

Author

Listed:
  • Alison L. Booth
  • Lina Cardona-Sosa
  • Patrick Nolen

Abstract

We examine the effect of single-sex classes on the pass rates, grades, and course choices of students in a coeducational university. We randomly assign students to all-female, all-male, and coed classes and, therefore, get around the selection issues present in other studies on single-sex education. We find that one hour a week of single-sex education benefits females: females are 7% more likely to pass their first year courses and score 10% higher in their required second year classes than their peers attending coeducational classes. We find no effect of single-sex education on the probability that a female will take technical classes and there is no effect of single-sex education for males. Furthermore we are able to examine potential mechanisms driving the single-sex effect for females. We find that the results are consistent with a reduction in stereotype threat for females and are not due to a potential tracking effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Alison L. Booth & Lina Cardona-Sosa & Patrick Nolen, 2013. "Do Single-Sex Classes Affect Exam Scores? An Experiment in a Coeducational University," CEPR Discussion Papers 679, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:auu:dpaper:679
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/CEPR/DP679.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michele Pezzoni & Jacques Mairesse & Paula Stephan & Julia Lane, 2016. "Gender and the Publication Output of Graduate Students: A Case Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, January.
    2. Ulf Zölitz & Jan Feld, 2021. "The Effect of Peer Gender on Major Choice in Business School," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6963-6979, November.
    3. Ulf Zölitz & Jan Feld, 2017. "The effect of peer gender on major choice," ECON - Working Papers 270, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Aug 2018.
    4. Oosterbeek, Hessel & van Ewijk, Reyn, 2014. "Gender peer effects in university: Evidence from a randomized experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 51-63.
    5. Marianne Bernatzky & Alejandro Cid, 2014. "Brecha de género en la educación secundaria," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1406, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    6. Park, Hyunjoon & Behrman, Jere R. & Choi, Jaesung, 2018. "Do single-sex schools enhance students’ STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) outcomes?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 35-47.
    7. Luo, Yiyang & Yang, Songtao, 2023. "Gender peer effects on students’ educational and occupational expectations," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. Dustmann, Christian & Ku, Hyejin & Kwak, Do Won, 2018. "Why Are Single-Sex Schools Successful?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 79-99.
    9. Doris, Aedín & O’Neill, Donal & Sweetman, Olive, 2013. "Gender, single-sex schooling and maths achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 104-119.
    10. Anne Ardila Brenøe, 2018. "Origins of gender norms: sibling gender composition and women's choice of occupation and partner," ECON - Working Papers 294, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    single-sex; education; gender; experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:auu:dpaper:679. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cpanuau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.