Patterns of Gendered Performance Differences in Large Introductory Courses at Five Research Universities

Significant gendered performance differences are signals of systemic inequity in higher education. Understanding of these inequities has been hampered by the local nature of prior studies; consistent measures of performance disparity across many disciplines and institutions have not been available....

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAERA open Vol. 3; no. 4
Main Authors Matz, Rebecca L., Koester, Benjamin P., Fiorini, Stefano, Grom, Galina, Shepard, Linda, Stangor, Charles G., Weiner, Brad, McKay, Timothy A.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.10.2017
SAGE Publishing
Subjects
Academic Achievement
Gender Differences
Introductory Courses
Research Universities
Social Sciences
STEM Education
Undergraduate Students
achievement gap
grade point average
laboratory
science education
gender studies
higher education
lecture
course grade
postsecondary education
statistics
STEM
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Summary:Significant gendered performance differences are signals of systemic inequity in higher education. Understanding of these inequities has been hampered by the local nature of prior studies; consistent measures of performance disparity across many disciplines and institutions have not been available. Here, we report the first wide-ranging, multi-institution measures of gendered performance difference, examining more than a million student enrollments in hundreds of courses at five universities. After controlling for factors that relate to academic performance using optimal matching, we identify patterns of gendered performance difference that are consistent across these universities. Biology, chemistry, physics, accounting, and economics lecture courses regularly exhibit gendered performance differences that are statistically and materially significant, whereas lab courses in the same subjects do not. These results reinforce the importance of broad investigation of performance disparities across higher education. They also help focus equity research on the structure and evaluative schemes of these lecture courses.
ISSN:2332-8584
2332-8584
DOI:10.1177/2332858417743754