Do Gender Differences in First-Year Grades Contribute to the Gender - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Do Gender Differences in First-Year Grades Contribute to the Gender - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Jan 14, 2023 202 likes •377 views

Do Gender Differences in First-Year Grades Contribute to the Gender Gap in STEM? Elizabeth Stearns Nandan Jha Jason Giersch Roslyn Mickelson Stephanie Moller A paper presented at the 2013 Southern Sociological Society Annual Meeting,

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Do Gender Differences in First-Year Grades Contribute to the Gender Gap in STEM?

Elizabeth Stearns Nandan Jha Jason Giersch Roslyn Mickelson Stephanie Moller

A paper presented at the 2013 Southern Sociological Society Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA. This work was supported by a grant from the NSF Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP) [Grant Number DUE-0969286]. All errors and interpretations are those of the authors.

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Finding the Roots : Motivating Issues

Continuing Underrepresentation of Women in STEM

  • Varied explanations
  • One of the most common is academic

differences

  • Riegle-Crumb et al. (2012) and others call into

question

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Finding the Roots

Women’s and Men from Underrepresented Minority Groups’ Underrepresentation in STEM

Grades 6-12 Cultural, Social, and Structural Conditions Individual Characteristics Post-Secondary Cultural, Social, and Structural Conditions

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Why Grades are Important

  • Rational choice/human capital perspective
  • Grades as “signals”
  • Can push or pull students into or out of majors
  • Students choose major that will maximize later

returns

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Gender and Grades

  • Young women earn higher grades
  • Higher non-STEM grades may “pull” them toward

those fields

  • Relative advantage in non-STEM
  • Young women may also be more sensitive to

grades than young men are

  • Stereotype threat
  • Do these gender differences in grades

contribute to the gender gap in STEM?

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Finding the Roots Data

– North Carolina public high school students – Linked with data on public university students in NC

First time in college freshmen who matriculated in fall 2004 N=21,339

– Multilevel models

Students clustered within schools Glimmix procedure in SAS

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The UNC Campuses

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Outcome Variable

  • Multinomial logistic variable of major declaration
  • Student did not declare major
  • Student declared a non-STEM major
  • Student declared major in biological or agricultural sciences
  • Student declared major in physical sciences, engineering, or math
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Measures of GPA

  • Two measures used in separate analyses
  • Absolute GPA
  • Relative advantage of STEM grades (STEM GPA-non-

STEM GPA)

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  • Types of courses taken in

first year

  • Racial group of student
  • Socioeconomic status
  • LEP
  • First generation in college
  • College aspirations in 10th

grade

  • Extracurricular

participation in 10th grade

School characteristics

  • HBCU
  • Average SAT scores
  • # of majors available
  • High school
  • Location
  • % FRL
  • % White
  • M/S Focused School
  • School size
  • Student/teacher ratio

Controls

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Average First Year GPA by Gender and Types of Courses

Type of Courses Young Men Young Women Average First Year GPA 2.416 2.670*** Average First Year GPA in STEM Courses 2.188 2.347*** Average First Year GPA in Non-STEM Courses 2.540 2.830*** Average of Comparative Advantage in First Year GPA in STEM Courses v. Non- STEM Courses

  • 0.352
  • 0.483***

***p<.001

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Absolute GPA and PS/E Majors

0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 X̄-2σ X̄-σ X̄ X̄+σ X̄+2σ Probability of Declaring PS/E Majors X̄ = Mean of GPA in First Year of College Female, All Courses Female, BIO & Non-STEM Female, PS/E & Non-STEM Male, All Courses Male, BIO & Non-STEM Male, PS/E & Non-STEM

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Absolute GPA and Biology Majors

0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 X̄-2σ X̄-σ X̄ X̄+σ X̄+2σ Probability of Declaring BIO Majors X̄ = Mean of GPA in First Year of College Female, All Courses Female, BIO & Non-STEM Female, PS/E & Non-STEM Male, All Courses Male, BIO & Non-STEM Male, PS/E & Non-STEM

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Relative GPA and PS/E Majors

0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 X̄-2σ X̄-σ X̄ X̄+σ X̄+2σ Probability of Declaring PS/E Majors X̄ = Mean of Relative Advantage in First Year GPA in Science Courses Female, All Courses Female, BIO & Non-STEM Female, PS/E & Non-STEM Male, All Courses Male, BIO & Non-STEM Male, PS/E & Non-STEM

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Relative GPA and Biology Majors

0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 X̄-2σ X̄-σ X̄ X̄+σ X̄+2σ Probability of Declaring BIO Majors X̄ = Mean of Relative Advantage in First Year GPA in Science Courses Female, All Courses Female, BIO & Non-STEM Female, PS/E & Non-STEM Male, All Courses Male, BIO & Non-STEM Male, PS/E & Non-STEM

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Conclusions

  • Roots of STEM gender disparities do not lie in

academic differences in performance during the first year of college

  • Consistent with results regarding high school

performance

  • Explanations for this gender gap must look

beyond the first year of college