A gender gap of ~9 points appears even on a low-stakes diagnostic assessment, contradicting prior findings that the gap disappears in low-stakes assessments¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? The gender gap was present on a no-consequence diagnostic assessment (~9 points; 0.45 SD), partially refuting the hypothesis that gaps vanish in low-stakes assessments. → Ilana Ram 2025

Evidence¶

Ilana Ram 2025¶

Ilana Ram, Adam Shwartz, Ido Roll. (2025). Minding the gender gap in advanced STEM courses: effects of student preparedness and activity level. Instructional Science (2025) 53:1457–1478. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-025-09748-1

q3 · i? · associational · r2

A 15-item multiple-choice diagnostic assessment (Cronbach's alpha = 0.724) with no impact on grades was administered at the start of Course IV to all 315 participants. The study reports "A gap was also present on the low-stakes diagnostic assessment" of about 9 points; the article prints no standardized effect size statistic for this contrast, so impact is null.

"A gap was also present on the low-stakes diagnostic assessment (~ 9 points; 0.45 SD)."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Women score lower than men in high-stakes final exams across advanced undergraduate STEM courses, with mean differences of 2.5 to ~7 points on a 100-point scale
• High-school grades do not capture the preparation gap: controlling for high-school scores did not eliminate the gap, possibly due to a ceiling effect
• Once undergraduate-level mathematics and physics preparation is controlled, gender no longer significantly predicts performance in advanced STEM courses
• Young women outperformed young men in every grading category family in unweighted points, with the largest gap in assignments and smallest in assessments; weighting reversed this ordering — related