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The recent Programme for International Student Assessment or Pisa has inadvertently exposed UK girls’ weakness: maths. But what made such finding truly newsworthy is the ensuing gender gap.
The discovery of this maths-gender gap came through a report’s recommendation; using ‘test results from more than 60 different territories,’ the report opts to unshed the mystery behind the varying level of performance between 15-year old boys and girls.
Perception is the culprit
Andreas Schleicher, OECD deputy education director, asserted that “innate differences” has nothing to do with the disparity. This quick retort has been essential; though the infamous view that “maths are for boys” is ancient, some still thought this to be the cause of girls’ poor test performance in maths.
The culprit, however, had something to do with the “students’ drive, motivation and self-beliefs” – what is collectively referred to as, ‘confidence.’ What hurts female teens’ confidence is their poor perception about maths, and the subject in context to their abilities.
When they [girls] think about science, they think more about health related professions – when boys think about science they think about engineering and computer related professions.
Complementary surveys revealed girls’ “perception of themselves as being bad at maths,” as well as, a meagre 40% of these UK girls who are “likely to pursue a career that involved maths.” These perceptions are seen to have contributed to the poor performance of UK’s girl-teens in the Pisa tests.
Apart from the students’ perceptions, UK’s math education is also under attack. Unlike the Asian approach, which involved an orientation towards ‘understanding the underlying concepts,’ UK’s math-teaching approach were too focused on “solving simple problems.”
Inevitably, UK’s approach undermined, if not exacerbated, teenage girls’ potentials in terms of performing better in maths (despite a sagging perception).
Some probable impacts
The need to act on this perplexing and prevalent issue can’t be understated. Mr Schleicher, for one, believes that this scenario does have impacts or “far-reaching economic consequences” for the students.
To help validate this, he cited this finding:
People with good maths skills in the UK are six times more likely to have earnings above the median income.
In terms of career distribution, 76% of these girls are anticipated to fill in “education-related subjects,” leaving a skimpy 19% for computing and 23% for engineering. Unsurprisingly, these figures called into question the education board’s next moves.
Further actions
While Pisa was able to fully expose UK’s maths-related gender gap, it had also paved the way to presenting astounding performances. Take for instance that of Shanghai’s 15-year old girl. Her maths test score soared to a whopping 610 – a score which happened to be “well above boys’ average performance in every other country and school system that participated in Pisa.”
UK’s girls should find inspiration in her story; teachers and parents, on the other hand, have to work well in ensuring that these girls receive the necessary support they needed to revamp their maths performance.
Apart from changing students’ mindsets, teachers must resolve to ‘make maths appeal’ more to teenage girls’ sensibilities.
Is your current maths subject challenging you to push further? How do you motivate yourself to do well with your maths?
