Math Ability/Performance:
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Abstracts

“This article presents for the first time a comprehensive compilation of data, including cross-cultural comparisons, regarding young people identified during the past twenty years as possessing profound aptitude for mathematics based upon their performances in extremely difficult examinations in mathematical problem solving. We show that many girls exist who possess such extremely high aptitude for mathematics. The frequency with which they are identified is due, at least in part, to a variety of socio-cultural, educational, or other environmental factors that differ significantly among countries and ethnic groups and can change over time. Girls were found to be 12%-24% of the children identified as having profound mathematical ability when raised under some conditions; under others, they were 30-fold or more underrepresented. Thus, we conclude that girls with exceptional mathematical talent exist; their identification and nurturing should be substantially improved so this pool of exceptional talent is not wasted.”

Benbow and Stanley analyzed data from the the Johns Hopkins Study for Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) to conclude “sex differences in achievement in and attidude towards mathematics result from superior male mathematical ability...[it] is probably a combination of both endogeneous and exogeneous variables.” This Benbow and Stanley article has both been widely cited and just as widely criticized.

Includes: Means, standard deviations, and gender differences across all courses. (table); Correlations of scholastic aptitude & descriptive questionnaire scores. (table); Means, standard deviations, and gender differences for algebra courses. (table)

The relationship between mental rotation ability and gender differences in Scholastic Aptitude Test - Math (SAT-M) across diverse samples was investigated. Talented preadolescents, college students, and high- and low-ability college-bound youths, totaling 760, were administered the Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test. Gender comparisons showed male outperforming female students in both mental rotation and SAT-M for all 3 high-ability groups but not for the low-ability group. For all female samples, mental rotation predicted math aptitude even when SAT - Verbal was entered first into the regression. For male samples, the relationship varied as a function of sample. When mental rotation ability was statistically adjusted for, the significant gender difference in SAT-M was eliminated for the college sample and the high-ability college-bound students. This suggests that spatial ability may be responsible in part for mediating gender differences in math aptitude among these groups COPYRIGHT American Psychological Association Inc. 1995

A study of the effect of gender on problem solving strategies of high school students. Interviews were conducted with high school students with SAT-M scores of 670 or higher. High SAT-M scores were correlated with confidence, persistence, and other positive attitudes towards math, whereas use of conventional problem solving strategies was correlated with such negative attitudes as dislike and nonrelevance.

This study reviews and extends the considerable literature demonstrating that the various College Board examinations (most importantly the Scholastic Aptitude Tests) make a small underprediction of women's college grades relative to those of men in all fields except engineering. This finding persists even when corrections are made for differences in the fields that women and men study and for sample selection bias. Because of this under prediction, women most probably are underrepresented relative to their merit in freshman classes and scholarship competitions at selective public universities. The differences in predicted grades are small, but account for an underrepresentation of women by at least 5% of the freshman classes of the University of California atBerkeley (200 to 300 a year) in the late 1980s. Various solutions to this underprediction by the SATs and the dilemmas they pose for public universities such as Berkeley are explored.

The study investigates the effect of time limits on SAT-type practice exams.

A study of the mathematics section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT-M) and performances of men and women in this section in connection with their performance in a freshman math course is outlined. Results show that the SAT-M disfavors women such that women generally perform less well than men although their academic performances in college are similar. The causes of this differential validity by sex are political and not scientific and, as such, are similar to the issue of racial and linguistic biases.