Most school math contests are one-shot events where girls underperform relative to their male classmates. But a new study by a Brigham Young University economist presents a different picture.<\/p>\n Twenty-four local elementary schools changed the format to go across five different rounds. Once the first round was over, girls performed as well or better than boys for the rest of the contest<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really encouraging that seemingly large gaps disappear just by keeping them in the game longer<\/strong>,\u201d said BYU economics professor Joe Price.<\/p>\n Price co-authored the study with the University of Miami\u2019s Christopher Cotton and Rutgers\u2019 Frank McIntyre. Their report is published by the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.<\/em><\/p>\n In the contest, students were paired against a classmate to see who got the most questions right during a 5-minute quiz. In case of a tie, the student who finished first won. The winner earned raffle tickets for a small prize.<\/strong><\/p>\n Because the schools shared past test scores with the researchers, they could compare how similarly talented boys and girls performed. Even though these matches look even on paper, for some reason boys have the edge when it\u2019s the first foray into a competitive setting.<\/strong> On a test worth ten points, it usually amounts to a one-point edge for boys in the initial round.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know if it\u2019s boys getting excited and over-performing or if it\u2019s girls being too uncomfortable with the situation<\/strong>,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s another twist: Six classrooms de-emphasized the speed component. Ties weren\u2019t decided by who finished first. And though there was still just five minutes on the clock, the students were told, \u201cIt\u2019s not a race.\u201d<\/p>\n With those two small adjustments, girls competed evenly with boys from the start.<\/strong> BYU math professor Jessica Purcell, who was not involved with the study, wasn\u2019t surprised that the format adjustments resulted in more parity.<\/p>\n \u201cIn mathematical settings without time pressure or competition, such as classes I have taught or classes I have taken, males and females seem to do equally well<\/strong>,\u201d said Purcell, a recipient of the prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship.<\/p>\n Since boys\u2019 competitive advantage is so short-lived, the study authors suggest that a little encouragement could go a long way.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat motivated us was how to get girls to thrive in a competitive environment,\u201d said Price, noting that he has two daughters. \u201cYou might guess that girls would shy away from competitive work environments. What our results would hint is that if you convince them to stick around and give it a shot, they will acclimate and do just fine.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the BYU press release: The idea that boys are better at math and in competitions has persisted for a long time, and now we know why: Nobody bothered to schedule the rematch. Most school math contests are one-shot events where girls underperform relative to their male classmates. But a new study by a Brigham… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[45,18,46,73],"class_list":["post-11097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning-2","tag-children","tag-cognition","tag-gender","tag-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11097"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11171,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11097\/revisions\/11171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"school\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/school_daydream.jpg\")
The idea that boys are better at math and in competitions has persisted for a long time, and now we know why: Nobody bothered to schedule the rematch.<\/strong><\/p>\n