Boys regain the advantage in middle school STEM skills in post-COVID gender achievement gap trends¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2025 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2030: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q2 i? Post-COVID trends in gender achievement gaps show boys regaining the advantage in middle school STEM skills. → Megan Kuhfeld 2025

Evidence¶

Megan Kuhfeld 2025¶

Megan Kuhfeld, Karyn Lewis, Gustave Robinson. (2025). Boys regain the advantage in middle school STEM skills: Post-COVID trends in gender achievement gaps. NWEA Research Brief. https://www.nwea.org/research/publication/boys-regain-the-advantage-in-middle-school-stem-skills-post-covid-trends-in-gender-achievement-gaps/

q2 · i? · associational · r2

The brief's title states its headline finding: an analysis of post-COVID trends in gender achievement gaps in which "Boys regain the advantage in middle school STEM skills". The available text is a summary description; no effect sizes or test statistics are printed.

"Boys regain the advantage in middle school STEM skills: Post-COVID trends in gender achievement gaps"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

Gender — predictor: outcomes differ by group: a gap reflecting circumstances and treatment, not a cause

Across nations, boys outperform girls in mathematics by a small average margin while girls outperform boys in reading by a margin three times larger — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
The study examines post-COVID trends in gender gaps in 8th grade STEM skills using three national assessments and Algebra enrollment data — related
Gender gap trends in 8th-grade STEM were estimated from five years of TIMSS, NAEP, and MAP Growth data spanning the pandemic — related
A two-million-student MAP Growth sample was used to test whether gender gaps widened among low- and high-achieving students — related
The study explored whether 8th-grade Algebra enrollment varied by gender during and after the pandemic — related
Early female-favored mean math differences reverse to male-favored differences that widen across elementary grades — related

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`claim`
`id`	`boys-regain-advantage-middle-school-stem-post-covid`
`title`	`Boys regain the advantage in middle school STEM skills in post-COVID gender achievement gap trends`
`description`	`Boys regain the advantage in middle school STEM skills in post-COVID gender achievement gap trends`
`status`	`review`
`evidence_strength`	`weak`
`newest_evidence`	`2025`
`source_checked`	`2026-10-20`
`recheck_by`	`2030`
`generated`	by `process:wiki-ingest` on `2026-10-08`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	1 — `megan-kuhfeld-2025`

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