Seminar

Gender Differences in Performance: The Role of External Testing Environments

Date: 09.01.2023, 13:00
Place: zoom meeting
Almudena Sevilla, London School of Economics

Almudena Sevilla, London School of Economics

We exploit a randomized control trial intervention on a large student population to study gender differences in response to externally and internally administered testing environments.

Specifically, grade 6 and 10 students were exposed to different testing environments, while other factors such as competition, stakes, and time pressure were held constant. Our findings indicate that girls perform worse than boys in external test-taking environments, particularly in subjects with strong stereotypes of female inability, like mathematics. A survey administered after each exam reveals that girls seem to have a lower tolerance for pressure and a lower incentive to exert effort in external testing conditions in mathematics, but not in verbal.

These findings may explain the widening gender gap in mathematics in external examination settings.

About the speaker: 

Almudena Sevilla is Professor in Economic and Social Policy in the Department of Social Policy at London School of Economics. Almudena is an applied micro economist whose research focuses on the areas of gender. Her research has uncovered the large and persistent gender gaps in earnings and representation and is published in top journals like the Journal of the European Economic Association, the proceedings of the American Economic Review, and the National Academy of Sciences. Almudena is currently the Chair of the Royal Economic Society UK Women in Economics Network, president-elect of the Society of the Economics of the Household, and she is co-founder of the Economics of Diversity, Gender, and Equality (EDGE) Network.

 

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