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Different Questions, Different Gender Gap: Can the Format of Questions Explain the Gender Gap in Mathematics?

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  • Silvia Griselda

Abstract

Standardized assessments are widely used to determine educational and economic opportunities. These standardized assessments exclusively, or in large part, use multiple-choice questions. But multiple-choice exams may not be adequate for comparing studentsâ competencies across genders. In this paper, I show that female students receive lower marks when randomly assigned to exams with a larger proportion of multiple-choice questions. Specifically, a 10 percentage point increase in the proportion of multiple-choice questions widens the gender difference in mathematics performance by 0.026 standard deviations in favor of men, an effect that represents about 50% of the overall gender gap. Moreover, a higher proportion of multiple-choice questions has negative spillovers to other open-ended questions on the same exam. Female students exert less effort than males on tests that contain a larger proportion of multiple-choice questions. I provide suggestive evidence that these results are driven by womenâs lower confidence and by the stereotypes that women face in traditionally male domains.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvia Griselda, 2020. "Different Questions, Different Gender Gap: Can the Format of Questions Explain the Gender Gap in Mathematics?," 2020 Papers pgr710, Job Market Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:jmp:jm2020:pgr710
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    Cited by:

    1. Judith M. Delaney & Paul J. Devereux, 2021. "Gender and Educational Achievement: Stylized Facts and Causal Evidence," Working Papers 202103, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    2. Jose Luis Arroyo-Barrigüete & Susana Carabias-López & Francisco Borrás-Pala & Gloria Martín-Antón, 2023. "Gender Differences in Mathematics Achievement: The Case of a Business School in Spain," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(2), pages 21582440231, April.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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