Women admitted to MIT with lower SAT math scores perform as well as men in freshman math classes¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoretical r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 1989 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on an ERIC document (a report, conference paper or thesis). It is kept because 3 design pages cite it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q2 i? MIT has admitted women with lower SAT math scores and found they do just as well as men in freshman math classes, contradicting the use of SAT math cutoffs for predicting performance. → Sex and Race Differences on Standardized Tests: Oversight Hearings before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary 1989

Evidence¶

Sex and Race Differences on Standardized Tests: Oversight Hearings before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary 1989¶

Sex and Race Differences on Standardized Tests: Oversight Hearings before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, First Session. (1989). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED312276

q2 · i? · the article prints no effect size for this finding · theoretical · r1

Testimony of Phyllis Rosser citing MIT's admissions experience as evidence against SAT math cutoffs. She pairs it with College Board validity studies showing women majoring in engineering and math tend to receive higher grades than their SAT scores predicted.

"MIT has been accepting girls with lower SAT math scores and has found they are doing just as well as boys in freshman math classes."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Gender — predictor: outcomes differ by group: a gap reflecting circumstances and treatment, not a cause
• General Cognitive Ability — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Systematic racial, ethnic and gender differences in grades persist among students with the same test scores, attendance, courses and teachers — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• Traditional gifted identification tests cannot fully determine learning potential and omit classroom-learning components — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• SAT scores underpredict the academic performance of high school girls, who average lower scores than boys despite higher grades — a broader claim this one bears on
• Testimony at a 1987 congressional hearing reported 1985 SAT averages in which Black women scored 43 points below Black men and 264 points below white men, which the witness called a double penalty for minority females — related
• Congressional hearing testimony reports, citing a 1979 ETS study second-hand, that females tend to do better on test items with female or neutral figures than on items with male figures — related
• Testimony at a 1987 congressional hearing reported that the Johns Hopkins talent search, which admitted by SAT score, invited over 2,500 boys but 1,081 girls in one summer although equal numbers took the test — related
• PSAT-based National Merit scholarship selection distributes awards disproportionately to boys, with girls receiving 36 percent of scholarships — related
• Girls score lower than boys on timed standardized math and science tests at the same course level, and SAT math scores underpredict women's college math performance — related
• The score gaps constitute evidence of sex differences in the validity of the SAT-M as a predictor of college math performance, though not of their cause — reports the opposite
• Women scored about 33 SAT-M points lower than men who took the same math course and received the same grade — related
• The fraction of women enrolling in mathematics degree programs in the UK and the Netherlands has remained constant despite rising female participation in higher education — related
• Single-sex math classrooms raised female students' math performance by 7–10% over co-educational programs
• 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 — related