This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The gender balance among the top scorers on Advanced Placement exams tends to track the gender balance among students taking those tests, according to a new study led by the University of Georgia. Across more than two decades of exam data, the researchers found participation in AP tests was often split along gender lines.
Girls dominated the languages, humanities and arts, while boys took more STEM (or science, technology, engineering and math) subjects. In many subjects, the more evenly split the AP test takers were, the narrower the gender gaps among students earning top scores became, the study found. "Gender stereotypes about ability, like persistent beliefs that boys are naturally better at mathematics, physics, computing or similar STEM courses, or that girls are better at arts, can influence both students' choices on which class to take and how well they do in that class," said Kadir Bahar, corresponding author of the study and an associate professor in the Mary Frances Early College of Education.
"Students are more likely to enter and persist in a field when they feel that people like them belong in it." AP classes are offered in high schools across the country. They are designed by the College Board to match the rigor of college courses and can count toward college credits if students score well on the AP exams at the end of term. The researchers analyzed more than 70 million AP exam results, covering about 40 million students between 1997 and 2020.
Out of 45 subjects, boys outnumbered girls in many science and math-centered subjects, especially physics and computer science, the study found. For example, the researchers found that for every one girl taking the AP Computer Science A exam, more than four boys were taking the exam. Girls outnumbered boys in studio art exams by almost three to one, and in English literature exams by almost two to one.
"Think about it: You are going to an AP physics course, and there is only one girl for every three boys. That might give a girl a sense that physics is a boys' room. That subject belongs to them," Bahar said.
That feeling may make girls question whether they should take a course, even if it interests them. The researchers found that male overrepresentation has decreased in many of those STEM-related courses—calculus, computer science and chemistry, for instance—over the years. AP Calculus AB exam participation, for example, stayed close to evenly split between boys and girls while the gap in Calculus BC narrowed.
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