Stereotype Threat and Gender: Math Performance in Chinese College Students

Abstract:

A series of studies in China, designed to evaluate the generality of the phenomenon of stereotype threat as a factor in the under-representation of Chinese women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, failed to demonstrate either threat effects or the typical math-gender gap. Our exploration of the math-gender gap in the United States led us to a description of the types of questions on the SAT-M and GRE-M and gender differences in responses to these question types. We found that the math test we had been using in our studies with Chinese college students did not contain the types of questions that favored men. We constructed a new math test containing these types of questions and replicated our stereotype threat experiment using Chinese physics majors. Once again we found no evidence of stereotype threat and no gender differences. We first discuss these results in terms of political, societal, and educational differences between China and the United States that could preclude gender differences in math performance and the disruptive effects of stereotype threat, then focus on limits to the generality and potency of the phenomenon of stereotype threat itself.

About the Authors

Ming Tsui is an associate professor of sociology at Millsaps College. Her research focuses on marriage and the family, gender, education, employment, and labor migration in China. Her publications have appeared in various national and international journals.

Xiao-ying Xu is a professor of physics at Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China.

Edmond Venator is an emeritus professor of psychology at Millsaps College.

Yan Wang is an associate professor of mathematics and computer sciences at Millsaps College.

Notes

See our 2008 article for a description of the math test we used.

The subjects were all traditional students between the ages of 19–20 who came from different provinces in China and were admitted to the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) and the physics program based on their total score and their score on the science portion of the college entrance examination.

In our previous study, our subjects included physics, computer sciences, and biology majors from top tier national and provincial research universities in China. While students in different disciplines and different schools tend to score somewhat differently, we found neither gender-math differences nor stereotype threat effects within the same discipline and within the same school. Because stereotype threat effects are strongest among students who are good at math and who consider math important, we decided that the physics majors at the WUT were the most suitable subjects to test the different types of math questions from the GRE Math Subject Test. In our earlier research on this subject, we found that even advanced GRE math may not be challenging enough for Chinese math majors. So we decided to use sophomore physics majors who have completed one year of college-level math.

We thank ETS for its permission to use part of the GRE Math Subject Test questions for our research.

Translated into Chinese by Yan Wang who is a Chinese-American math professor at Millsaps College.

Gallagher (1992) found that 58 percent of the math questions were Type 1; Types II through IV constituted 12 to 16 percent each.

The Chinese college entrance examination has two sets of tests, one for students pursuing majors in humanities and arts and the other for those wanting to major in math and natural sciences. There are significant gender differences among the top scorers of these two tests. Between 2000 and 2012, while 67 percent of the gaokao champions in humanities were female, women were only 36 percent of math/science gaokao champions (“In 18 provinces” 2014).

For a detailed discussion of China’s math education at elementary and secondary school level, see Tsui 2005.

PISA stands for Program for International Student Assessment, a triennial international test given to 15- year-old students by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to evaluate education systems around the world. The most recent PISA was in 2012.

In China, entrance exam test scores are the sole consideration in high-school and college admission decisions. While the regional gaokao champions from poverty-stricken families receive public or private scholarships to attend college, in college most of the scholarships are awarded on the basis of cumulative course test scores, not on financial need.