?On 30 January, Jim Clark wrote: >Even small differences in averages translate into considerable >imbalance at the extremes (favoring males at the high end), >and this would be even more marked if there were differences >in variability (i.e., more variability in males than females).
Yes, indeed! It is a pity that when people are pointing out male advantage at the top end in certain situations, they rarely note that there is usually a corresponding male disadvantage at the bottom end. >It also matters how math is measured ... girls do better in school >generally than boys, perhaps because they are more motivated >and conscientious… In relation to which the following may be of relevance: "Boys overtake girls in maths GCSE as coursework dropped" http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/aug/27/maths-gcse-coursework-dropped The GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) is the exam taken by all school students in the UK at the age of sixteen, usually around ten or twelve subjects according to choice. Coursework refers to projects that undertaken in the student's own time, and has contributed as much as 40 or more percent to the final exam grade in some subjects. As some of us (including journalists) have been pointing out in the decades since coursework was first introduced, there is no way of knowing how much outside help the student has had for his/her coursework. Notoriously, children with professional parents are more likely to get substantial help. (One occasionally reads articles in which journalists have written about how much time they had spent on their child's coursework!) Then again, teachers differ in the way they treat coursework, but that's another aspect of the issue. Going back to Jim's point, I think there is considerable evidence that, as a generality (with all the usual caveats :-) ), girls tend to be more conscientious than boys, and spend more time and effort on home projects than boys. Anecdotally, from my own experience: Mostly I taught mathematics at pre-university level in Further Education Colleges in London, but I did have a couple of years teaching at GCSE level. Almost all the students came directly from local schools, either wanting to improve their grades, or retaking the exam because they had failed the first time. Leaving aside that I resented the time spent on the (mostly pointless) coursework when I could have been teaching them more substantial mathematical material, the differences between the boys and girls were marked. Girls tended to produce more for the coursework, more carefully presented, whereas some of the boys tended to do a rush job at the last moment. Sorry about the stereotyping, but here's another one. There were two Chinese boys in the class. Both of them produced reams of work for their coursework projects. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=129 or send a blank email to leave-129-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
