Girls say they stink at math, even when they don’t

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In a study, girls in advanced mathematics classes said they thought they were worse at math than boys who were in basic math classes.

“Boys believed they were better than their grades actually are, while girls believed they were worse than their grades actually are,” study author Dr. Pamela Davis-Kean of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor told Reuters Health.

Furthermore, despite girls’ report cards, parents tended to believe that girls have to work harder at math than do sons.

These early influences may discourage many capable girls from entering careers in math and science, Davis-Kean said.

Indeed, when it came time to choosing college majors and careers, girls who wanted to use their math skills were more likely to choose medicine or law—careers now made up of at least 50 percent women—than to choose computer science or engineering, careers in which women are still a minority, she noted.

When asked why they steered clear of computer science and engineering, many women said they wanted to work in groups, and were turned off by the prospect of spending long hours alone in front of a computer, Davis-Kean said.

However, as most programmers will confirm, computer science involves a lot of team effort, the researcher said. So it’s false impressions, as well as early influences from parents, that likely discourage many girls from following their abilities, Davis-Kean said in an interview.

She and her colleagues followed 1,200 girls from sixth grade through their 30s, recording their grades, their perceptions of their abilities, and their chosen careers.

As part of another study, the investigators followed about 900 girls from kindergarten through adulthood, recording the same factors.

Starting early in school, the researchers found that girls overall received better grades than boys in school, and teachers generally said girls were stronger students than boys. However, even girls receiving excellent grades in advanced or honors math classes said they were worse at math than boys in basic math classes, receiving lower grades.

Girls also tended to say they worked harder at math than at English, but time diaries showed that girls logged more time working on language arts than on math.

Furthermore, parents of girls tended to say math was harder for their daughters than did parents of sons, and parents of daughters also believed their children had to work harder at math to do well.

Parents also tended to say they wanted their daughters to be happy in life, but wanted their sons to be successful.

These findings suggest that parents’ expectations for their daughters may be discouraging them from math and engineering careers, the researcher said. Girls “may be getting steered away.”

Not surprisingly, girls participating in the study chose careers in math and computer science at lower rates than boys, in line with national trends, Davis-Kean said.

She and her colleagues presented their findings last week during the biennial conference of the Society for Research in Child Development in Atlanta, Georgia.

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