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Gender and Math Performance

Hard
Gender and Math Performance | Science Fair Projects | STEM Projects
Do boys score higher than girls on math exams? Many people assume they do. This project puts that claim to the test with real data from 10 schools. You gather math exam scores from 100 boys and 100 girls at each school. All are the same age and take the same exam. You then calculate the average score for each group. The results may surprise you. Across all 10 schools, the gap between boys and girls is only 0.4%.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that boys are better than girls at math.

Method & Materials

You will select 10 co-ed schools and obtain permission from the school administration to access the math exam results of 100 boys and 100 girls. You will then calculate the average math results for each school and compare the results.
You will need the math exam results of 100 boys and 100 girls age 17 years, from 10 schools, a computer to help analyze the data, a survey form, and permission from the school administration to obtain and use the data.

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Results

The results showed that the boys only performed slightly better than the girls (by 0.4%). This indicates that boys and girls are at par in terms of their math abilities.

Why do this project?

This science project is interesting because it looks at the performance of boys and girls in math, and whether the difference in performance is due to nature or nurture.

Also Consider

Variations of this science project could include repeating the experiment with students from different age groups, or modifying the experiment to use data on math exam results for the top 10 students only, from various schools.

Full project details

Additional information and source material for this project are available below.

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