Writing Exercise Helps Women Narrow Gender Gap in Science

[n2doc]

By Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 29 November 2010 01:09 pm ET

Women still lag behind men in fields of science, technology, engineering and math — and part of the problem may be psychological. New research shows college-aged women who affirmed their identities through a writing exercise performed much better than others on physics exams, narrowing the gender gap.

The stereotype that men are better than women at math and science could put pressure on women who may worry the stereotype applies to them, according to the researchers. That psychological threat could lead to poorer outcomes for these women.

The brief writing exercise likely buffered against the threat, the researchers found.

During the 15-minute writing exercise, called a values affirmation intervention, some students wrote about their most important personal values, like friends and family. This exercise, performed twice over the months-long course, appeared to boost female, but not male, students' performances on their in-class multiple-choice exams and on a national, standardized test of conceptual mastery of physics, the researchers wrote in the Nov. 26 issue of the journal Science.

more
http://www.livescience.com/culture/physics-writing-exercise-101129.html

[patrice]

1. Centering. Very interesting!

If you took to sets of scores for math and science ability, one for men and the other for women and over-layed them one on the other, you would probably see that there is MUCH more variance within each set than there is between the two sets.