Sex differences in achievement in the elementary and secondary schools.

Abstract

This article reports the data on sex differences in school achievement yielded by the Iowa Every-Pupil Testing Program, high school, for the years 1932 to 1939, and the Iowa Every-Pupil Basic Skills Testing Program (Grades III-VIII) for the year 1940. A brief review of representative articles dealing with previously published investigations of a similar character is also given.A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE This brief review chiefly treats sex differences in achievement test scores, although attention is called at the outset to sex differences in school marks, promotion, acceleration, retardation, and similar evidences of school progress. In his Laggards in Our Schools, 1909, Ayres 2 concluded that "our schools as they now exist are better fitted to the needs and natures of the girl than of the boy pupils." He based this conclusion upon an analysis of the records of several hundred thousand pupils in various cities of the nation. In 7624 high schools in 1906-1907 there were 314,084 boys enrolled in comparison with 419,570 girls. In the elementary schools in fifteen cities, having an enrollment of 282,179 pupils, he found retardation among 37.1 per cent of the boys and 32.8 per cent of the girls. Approximately 23 per cent of the boys were repeating grades in comparison with 20.2 per cent of the girls. It is known that in recent years the number of boys in high school more nearly equals the number of girls.St. John's 16 data on retardation and acceleration make possible sex comparisons at comparable IQ levels. His investigation deals with the progress, over a four-year period, of about five hundred boys and four hundred fifty girls, Grades I to VI, chiefly I to IV, enrolled in the schools in a residential suburb of Boston. Table I shows the sex comparisons. St. John's data also show that correlations between IQ and achievement data were higher for girls than for boys. In marks of conduct and effort girls achieved a greater degree of superiority than in any of the other measures used.Johnson's 9 analysis of the records of the high-school pupils in St. Louis is to the same purpose. His data are shown, in part, in Table II.

The Self–reported Personal and Social Adjustment of Bright High–achieving and Under–achieving High School Boys*

“…This finding is consistent with previous findings that in contemporary America, below the college level, boys tend to make poorer grades than do girls of equal intelligence (Harris, 1940;Gowan, 1944), though not necessarily poorer scores on achievement tests (Stroud, 1942).…”

Effects of Sex of E and Sex of S in First and Fifth Grade Children’s Paired-Associate Learning

“…The incidence of sex differences in learning rates of elementary school children has been documented in the United States since 1909 (2) and sex differences in ability to read have been documented since 1932 (7). Several later researchers (1,11,12) have surveyed elementary school populations and have likewise found girls in the lower grades superior to boys in ability to read but have found that these differences tend to diminish as age increases. Similarly, surveys of reading clinics have been reported (13) in which the percentage of problem readers who are boys range from 75 to 90 percent.…”

Disparity of Attainment in Reading and Arithmetic

“…(2) Attainment Disparity and Sex Differences.-Although two of the references given (Lincoln 1927, Stroud andLindquist 1942) are not as definitc in their results as Lynn implies, the sex differences are fairly well established. The classical summary (Terman and Tyler, 1954) mentions a number of conflicting reports but concludes, rather more cautiously than Lynn, that girls are better than boys on specd of reading tests.…”