IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v220y2022ics0165176522003275.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Male–female achievement variance comparisons are not robust

Author

Listed:
  • Domicolo, Carly
  • Nielsen, Eric

Abstract

Males have greater variability in achievement than females in almost all countries using internationally comparable test scores. However, these variance comparisons can frequently be reversed using economically plausible, order-preserving rescalings of the psychometrically derived test scores. The oft-cited “Greater Male Variability Hypothesis” for achievement may be a psychometric artifact.

Suggested Citation

  • Domicolo, Carly & Nielsen, Eric, 2022. "Male–female achievement variance comparisons are not robust," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:220:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522003275
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110853
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176522003275
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110853?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schröder, Carsten & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 2017. "Revisiting the evidence for cardinal treatment of ordinal variables," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 337-358.
    2. Timothy N. Bond & Kevin Lang, 2013. "The Evolution of the Black-White Test Score Gap in Grades K–3: The Fragility of Results," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1468-1479, December.
    3. Thomas S. Dee & Brian Jacob, 2011. "The impact of no Child Left Behind on student achievement," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 418-446, June.
    4. Brian Jacob & Jesse Rothstein, 2016. "The Measurement of Student Ability in Modern Assessment Systems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 85-108, Summer.
    5. John Cawley & James Heckman & Edward Vytlacil, 1999. "On Policies To Reward The Value Added By Educators," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 720-727, November.
    6. Flavio Cunha & Eric Nielsen & Benjamin Williams, 2021. "The Econometrics of Early Childhood Human Capital and Investments," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 487-513, August.
    7. Neal, Derek A & Johnson, William R, 1996. "The Role of Premarket Factors in Black-White Wage Differences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 869-895, October.
    8. Figlio, David & Loeb, Susanna, 2011. "School Accountability," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 8, pages 383-421, Elsevier.
    9. Eric R. Nielsen, 2015. "The Income-Achievement Gap and Adult Outcome Inequality," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-41, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eric R. Nielsen, 2019. "Test Questions, Economic Outcomes, and Inequality," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2019-013, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Brian Jacob & Jesse Rothstein, 2016. "The Measurement of Student Ability in Modern Assessment Systems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 85-108, Summer.
    3. Jeffrey R. Bloem & Andrew J. Oswald, 2022. "The Analysis of Human Feelings: A Practical Suggestion for a Robustness Test," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(3), pages 689-710, September.
    4. Elizabeth U. Cascio & Douglas O. Staiger, 2012. "Knowledge, Tests, and Fadeout in Educational Interventions," NBER Working Papers 18038, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Carneiro, Pedro & Heckman, James J & Masterov, Dimitriy V, 2005. "Labor Market Discrimination and Racial Differences in Premarket Factors," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 1-39, April.
    6. Eric A. Hanushek & Jacob D. Light & Paul E. Peterson & Laura M. Talpey & Ludger Woessmann, 2022. "Long-run Trends in the U.S. SES-Achievement Gap," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 17(4), pages 608-640, Fall.
    7. Bond, Timothy N. & Lehmann, Jee-Yeon K., 2018. "Prejudice and racial matches in employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 271-293.
    8. Nirav Mehta, 2019. "Measuring quality for use in incentive schemes: The case of “shrinkage” estimators," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(4), pages 1537-1577, November.
    9. Hanushek, Eric A. & Peterson, Paul E. & Talpey, Laura M. & Woessmann, Ludger, 2019. "The Unwavering SES Achievement Gap: Trends in U.S. Student Performance," Working Paper Series rwp19-012, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    10. Jesse Rothstein, 2019. "Inequality of Educational Opportunity? Schools as Mediators of the Intergenerational Transmission of Income," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S1), pages 85-123.
    11. Ian K. McDonough & Punarjit Roychowdhury & Gaurav Dhamija, 2021. "Measuring the Dynamics of the Achievement Gap Between Public and Private School Students During Early Life in India," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 78-122, March.
    12. Richard J. Murnane, 2013. "U.S. High School Graduation Rates: Patterns and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(2), pages 370-422, June.
    13. Heckman, James J. & Zhou, Jin, 2022. "Measuring Knowledge," IZA Discussion Papers 15252, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Xavier Cirera & Diego A. Comin & Marcio Cruz & Kyung Min Lee, 2020. "Anatomy of Technology in the Firm," NBER Working Papers 28080, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Shirin A. Hashim & Thomas J. Kane & Thomas Kelley-Kemple & Mary E. Laski & Douglas O. Staiger, 2020. "Have Income-Based Achievement Gaps Widened or Narrowed?," NBER Working Papers 27714, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Joshua B. Gilbert & Zachary Himmelsbach & James Soland & Mridul Joshi & Benjamin W. Domingue, 2024. "Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects with Item-Level Outcome Data: Insights from Item Response Theory," Papers 2405.00161, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    17. Markowitz, Anna J. & Bassok, Daphna & Player, Daniel, 2020. "Simplifying quality rating systems in early childhood education," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    18. Byrne, Kieran & Plekhanov, Alexander, 2021. "Education reforms and adult skills: Evidence from Estonia," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    19. Sloczynski, Tymon, 2018. "Average Gaps and Oaxaca's Blinder Decompositions: A Cautionary Tale about Regression Estimates of Racial Differences in Labor Market Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 12041, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Eric R. Nielsen, 2015. "Achievement Gap Estimates and Deviations from Cardinal Comparability," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-40, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Human capital; Variance hypothesis; Gender differences; Achievement; Inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J - Labor and Demographic Economics
    • J - Labor and Demographic Economics
    • I - Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I - Health, Education, and Welfare

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:220:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522003275. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.