Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

Re:Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests by kevhito on Thursday August 04, 2016 @10:27AM (#12225727)

It makes sense to me, based on my own limited personal experience as a college prof (teaching CS). Particularly for our intro classes, it's fairly common for a male student to struggle all semester and scrape by with a D-, then without hesitation declare his intention to be a CS major. At the same time, a female will get a B or A- and walk away apparently thinking "I guess I'm just not good at this and CS just isn't for me."

This is all just my impression, of course, from a small sample size. Still, we've had very good results improving our male/female ratio just by have a short 1-minute chat with each student that gets above a B, praising their work and encouraging them to consider CS as a major.

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Re:Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests by yummyfajitas on Thursday August 04, 2016 @11:19AM (#12226081)

Does that male student actually become a STEM practitioner, or do they just flunk out at a later date than the female? It's unclear that female behavior here is what needs to be fixed. Perhaps men should drop out more.

Another possibility is that both behaviors are correct responses to different incentives. Males generally have far lower social value than females, so for the male it might be STEM or bust. In contrast, the female has options like moving into a non-competitive profession and then get married to an engineer/lawyer/doctor/banker. So for the female, the marginal value of STEM over her next best choice might be a lot lower than the male.

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Re:Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests by hx87 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @11:25AM (#12226129)

> Males generally have far lower social value than females

Probably because men are more willing to marry down socioeconomically, although this is changing and may move further in the direction of equality in the future.

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Re:Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests by yummyfajitas on Thursday August 04, 2016 @01:35PM (#12227165)

This is not generally what has happened so far - so far women's rise has driven assortative mating rather than women marrying down.

I think this is (in the long haul) a good thing, provided we can encourage high intellect couples to reproduce. It'll generate a high IQ upper caste who will be natural leaders for society.

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Re:Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests by hx87 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @02:16PM (#12227414)

Men have become more socioeconomically selective, at least to a greater extent than women have become less selective. I think you and I are in agreement there.

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Re:Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests by wastedhours on Thursday August 04, 2016 @11:26AM (#12226138)

100% agree that men should also probably drop out more. I did, but many others continued, only becoming disillusioned, frustrated and ending up in completely non-STEM fields in large numbers. That being said, addressing barriers to career choice earlier in life is important so people can start becoming passionate before the opportunity to explore them (at traditional educational stages) passes them by.

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Re:Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests by ianai on Thursday August 04, 2016 @10:44AM (#12225831)

That one rang a little too close to home. The reason I chose math was it was the hard subject that I could reliably overcome. Meaning, while I still had a hard time with concepts, I could eventually get there. I liked the challenge even if it hurt my GPA at times. Meanwhile I overheard many engineers group working on homework (copying one another) to ensure their GPAs were never in question.

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