Gender Gaps in Test Scores and Grades: Women Fare as Well or Better Than Male Counterparts In Smaller Classes
Stanford Law School Professor Mark Kelman is co-author, with colleague Daniel Ho, of an article on how to decrease the gender gap in professional school settings.
Rhoades Residential Hall, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania
Reducing class sizes and reforming grading systems may help reduce the gender gap in professional school settings, according to a new Stanford study.
"Our findings suggest that class size and pedagogical policy have a considerable role to play in addressing gender gaps in professional school," wrote Stanford law Professors Daniel Ho and Mark Kelman in a research article in the Journal of Legal Studies.
Pedagogy is the art or science of teaching and educational methods. In their study, the Stanford law professors examined the grades of Stanford law students in small or large classes from 2001 to 2012. The research capitalized on the fact that students were assigned to one first-year course in a small section, they wrote.
As Kelman, also the vice dean at Stanford Law School, said, "Randomization and mandatory classes mean that we can cleanly study the effects of class size, as self-selection is not an issue."
The data consisted of 15,689 grades assigned by 91 instructors to 1,897 students in that time period. In 2008, the law school notably changed the grading system and reduced some class sizes.
As Kelman and Ho pointed out, gender gaps in test scores and grades have been documented across a range of educational settings — in science, collegiate outcomes, and law and business schools. Research shows that Socratic and adversarial teaching styles — common to traditional law school instruction — may pose disadvantages for female students, who tend to participate less frequently than males in larger classes. Studies also have found that women fare as well or better than male counterparts when class sizes are smaller.
When the researchers analyzed student grades in the 2001-08 period, a clear gender gap existed for female students in large classes. On average, women earned grades that were .05 GPA points lower than those for men.
Though such a gender gap is relatively small, the professors wrote, it is significant when it comes to career opportunities in a field like law. Grades and clerkship placements are highly correlated — an increase in GPA from 3.6 to 3.65 is associated with a 7 percent increase in the probability of securing a federal appellate clerkship, they noted.
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