More on the Male-Female SAT Math Test Gap
Submitted by CARPE DIEM
It’s well known that for the SAT mathematics test, a) male high school students in the U.S. have higher scores on average than females, b) the gap is large and statistically significant (+30 points), and c) the male-female math test score gap has persisted over time, since at least 1971, and probably much longer (see chart above, data here from the Dept. of Education).
One explantion for the female-male math test score gap is summarized here by Janet Hyde et al.:
Using
Census Bureau data, the chart below shows that females taking the SAT exam as a percent of the total increased from 50% in 1975 to 53.6%, as the male percentage has decreased from 50% to 46.4% over that period (see chart below).
According to the reasoning above, as the number of females taking the SAT exam increased over time (along with the percent of total) relative to males, the mean female score should have decreased relative to the male mean score, and the male-female gap should be INCREASING over time, theoretically.
But that is exactly the opposite of what has actually been happening. The chart below shows that the male-female gap has actually been decreasing over time, even as more females took the test relative to males, from a high of 46 points in 1977 to a gap of 33 points in 2008.
Bottom Line: The gender gap appears to be more than just a sampling artifact, since the decreasing male-female math test score gap is exactly the opposite of what the Hyde et al. hypothesis would predict.
Update: Additionally, if the number of females taking the test increases over time, the Hyde hypothesis would also predict a falling mean female math test score over time, when in fact we see the opposite: a rising female mean SAT math test score.
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