Lunch Seminar Economics (LSE) - 2021/2022
Interviene: Almudena Sevilla (UCL)
Title: The Gender Gap in Student Performance: The Role of the Testing Environment
Authors: Almudena Sevilla (UCL) and José Montalbán
Abstract: We study to what extent the familiarity with the testing environment impacts the relative performance of boys and girls in standardized testing. We use an RCT -design on the full population of students in Grade 6 and 10 in the Region of Madrid (Spain). We exploit the fact that schools were randomly allocated to have either an externally administered test managed by the education authorities or an internally administered test managed by the school. We find that girls’ relative scores under an externally administered testing environment are lower than girls’ relative scores under internally administered testing environment. In line with stereotype threat theories, girls relative under-performance is more salient in traditionally male-dominated subjects, such as Mathematics. Additional evidence from surveying students at the end of each test allows us to understand the mechanisms at play. We find that whereas girls in Grade 6 experience a higher level of stress than boys, girls in Grade 10 devote less effort during the test than boys under an externally administered testing environment. There are no gender differences in stress or effort under an internally administered testing environment.