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At a top business school, women receive lower grades in quantitative courses compared to men who have similar academic aptitudes, GPAs, family backgrounds, and demographics as captured by their college applications.
This gap closes if the instructor is female.
New paper
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This gap closes if the instructor is female.
New paper
@AradhnaKrishna and I have a forthcoming paper that quantifies the academic performance difference between men and women at a top undergraduate business program.
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We investigate the differences in academic achievement of male and female students and what drives these differences. We focus on introductory courses of the core curriculum in a top-ranked undergraduate program.
Women’s grades are significantly lower in quantitative courses than those of men with similar academic aptitude and demographics. Men’s grades are significantly lower in nonquantitative courses than those of otherwise comparable women.
For example, women score 33.7% of a standard deviation lower than comparable men in finance. Men score 33.5% of a standard deviation lower than women in management & organizations. (Guess whether jobs in I-banking or HR pay more.)
Innate ability/preference?
Grading bias?
Stereotyped beliefs of students?
We find strongest evidence for the latter.
Grading bias?
Stereotyped beliefs of students?
We find strongest evidence for the latter.
Female students’ performance in quant courses is higher when taught by female instructors. A complementing survey suggests that female instructors increase female students’ interest and motivation in quantitative courses.
Findings suggests that female instructors teaching quantitative subjects serve as counter-examples and role-models to challenge students’ beliefs about where they find success.
In contrast, instructor gender does not affect male students’ performance, interest, or perception of instructors in any of the courses.
Either men’s performance in non-quant courses is driven by innate preferences, and/or having a male instructor is not effective in challenging gender stereotypes regarding these courses. (About half of instructors in most these courses are male anyways.)
Academic achievement gaps not only create inequity in education, but also may have far-reaching consequences, because they may shape occupational choices.
We find that female students who have a mid to high aptitude for quantitative subjects are the most disadvantaged by gender stereotypes and benefit the most from having female instructors as role models.
It is worrisome that the quant professional world is missing out on these talented women. The career choices upon graduation also reflect this issue.
We can/should do better.
We can/should do better.
Business school faculty know that representation matters for students. We all had those conversations. Now, we also have the causal empirical evidence to back it up.
We call on all business school deans to make a concerted effort in keeping the results of this study in mind both in their hiring decisions and when allocating faculty to courses.
