Gender and Achievement: Introduction and key issues

Assessment

To what extent is the 'gender gap' actually constructed by the assessment procedures?

• There is some evidence to suggest that girls find timed, end-of-course examinations less favourable than boys do and this may adversely affect their performance. Boys perform slightly better than girls on multiple-choice tests, whatever the subject area.
• There is a perception, especially among teachers, that coursework favours girls. This may be so but the affect on performance is probably marginal because other elements in the examination can be more critical in determining final grades.
• To be fair to both boys and girls it is likely a wide variety of assessment modes should be used so that pupils have opportunities to produce their best performance.
• Girls value the contexts in which tasks are framed and take account of them in their responses. Boys and girls favour different styles of response to assessment items which reflects their writing and reading preferences; to some degree this may account for differentials in performance across the subjects and phases of education.
• Girls do better than boys on sustained tasks that are open-ended, process based, related to realistic situations, and that require pupils to think for themselves.
• Boys show greater adaptability to more traditional approaches to learning which require memorising abstract, unambiguous facts and rules that have to be acquired quickly. They appear willing to sacrifice deep understanding, requiring sustained effort, for solutions achieved at speed.