论文标题：Gender differences in individual variation in academic grades fail to fit expected patterns for STEM

期刊：Nature Communications

作者：R. E. O’Dea, M. Lagisz, M. D. Jennions, S. Nakagawa

发表时间：2018/09/25

数字识别码：10.1038/s41467-018-06292-0

原文链接：https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06292-0?utm_source=Other_website&utm_medium=Website_links&utm_content=RenLi-MixedBrand-multijournal-Multidisciplinary-China&utm_campaign=ORG_USG_JRCN_RL_article_promotion_sciencenet_Oct_2nd

微信链接：https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/C1iudpC6Vzjloum2ngWqEQ

《自然-通讯》发表的一项研究Gender differences in individual variation in academic grades fail to fit expected patterns for STEM指出，男生和女生在STEM（科学、技术、工程、数学）专业的平均成绩和变化率的差异比非STEM专业的要小。作者认为，男生间的成绩变化率较大不足以解释STEM专业中男生居多的现象。

图1：对女生（红色）和男生（蓝色）的学校成绩分布的预测。图源： O’Dea等

虽然在校期间女生的STEM成绩始终超过男生，但从事STEM相关职业的女性比例却低于男性。一个可能的解释是男生的学习能力变化率比女生的大。根据这种“变异性假说”，即使女生的平均成绩高于男生，但STEM专业成绩拔尖的男生人数更多，而且这些表现优异的男生更有可能从事STEM相关职业。

图2：对女孩（红色）和男孩（蓝色）学习能力的相对分布的推断。图源：O’Dea等

澳大利亚新南威尔士大学的Rose O’Dea及同事对160万名学生（由老师评价）的在校成绩进行了227项研究，并结合研究结果比较了男女生之间的成绩差异。作者发现，男女生的STEM成绩方差的差异比英语及历史等非STEM专业的差异要小。作者对这些差异进行模拟后发现，班上STEM专业成绩前10%的学生中男女比例相等，但非STEM专业成绩占前10%的女生较多。作者认为，虽然男生的成绩变化率比女生大，但这一原因无法单独解释STEM专业中男生较多的现象。

摘要：Fewer women than men pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), despite girls outperforming boys at school in the relevant subjects. According to the ‘variability hypothesis’, this over-representation of males is driven by gender differences in variance; greater male variability leads to greater numbers of men who exceed the performance threshold. Here, we use recent meta-analytic advances to compare gender differences in academic grades from over 1.6 million students. In line with previous studies we find strong evidence for lower variation among girls than boys, and of higher average grades for girls. However, the gender differences in both mean and variance of grades are smaller in STEM than non-STEM subjects, suggesting that greater variability is insufficient to explain male over-representation in STEM. Simulations of these differences suggest the top 10% of a class contains equal numbers of girls and boys in STEM, but more girls in non-STEM subjects.

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期刊介绍：Nature Communications (https://www.nature.com/ncomms/) is an open access journal that publishes high-quality research from all areas of the natural sciences. Papers published by the journal represent important advances of significance to specialists within each field.

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（来源：科学网）