Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests • Hacker News Board

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#11

Post by kevhito » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:27 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #4

> The findings suggest that a major factor in women’s decisions to leave STEM paths after Calculus I have nothing to do with ability, but confidence in their ability. (Though this particular study did not examine students’ grades in the class, a 2015 paper about college math concluded that women outperform men in Calc I.) I don't understand. They have no confidence, yet they outperform the men? So, they take the clas…

It makes sense to me, based on my own limited personal experience as a college prof (teaching CS). Particularly for our intro classes, it's fairly common for a male student to struggle all semester and scrape by with a D-, then without hesitation declare his intention to be a CS major. At the same time, a female will get a B or A- and walk away apparently thinking "I guess I'm just not good at this and CS just isn't for me."

This is all just my impression, of course, from a small sample size. Still, we've had very good results improving our male/female ratio just by have a short 1-minute chat with each student that gets above a B, praising their work and encouraging them to consider CS as a major.

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#12

Post by 11thEarlOfMar » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:31 PM UTC

balabaster wrote: post #5

chrisseaton wrote: post #3

> the notoriously difficult college math class, Calculus I Are college courses in the United States standardised? Does every college have a course they call Calculus I and have the same content and level of difficulty? Calculus seems to be a really big deal in the US education system. In the UK we learn about differentiation and integration in what you would call highschool as just another topic among many, and I don…

That's because our marketing department in the UK isn't as awesome as the ones they have in the States... have you not noticed that _everything_ has far more fanfare in the States than anywhere else on earth? Everything is so dramatic... including the "notoriously difficult" calculus. It's just their way of patronizing you with "don't worry if you don't understand, it's notoriously difficult" or put you on a pedestal…

>>Everything is so dramatic...

It's true, we Americans love the spectacular. Landing on the moon? Spectacular! The Super Bowl? Spectacular! Bombs over Baghdad? Spectacular!

I'm not sure why, but we can always blame Los Angeles.

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#13

Post by nnq » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

Purely anecdotical, but most of the women with a STEM education or interest I've heard from had a strong visceral dislike for calculus and strong attraction towards algebra.

And not in the US. And also including mathematics graduates. "I'd take any abstract algebra problem/work anytime, just keep differential equations of all kinds away from me" was smth I've heard once if memory serves well...

And at at least in European countries, high school math puts strong focus on calculus because of the obvious applications in physics. If doing stuff with groupoids and matrices is you kick, you could just as well get labeled "not a math person" if you don't get integrals and derivatives well enough...

(Me personally, I'm a male with strong calculus intuition - "checking my privilege" here to be PC :) )

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#14

Post by balabaster » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #12

balabaster wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because our marketing department in the UK isn't as awesome as the ones they have in the States... have you not noticed that _everything_ has far more fanfare in the States than anywhere else on earth? Everything is so dramatic... including the "notoriously difficult" calculus. It's just their way of patronizing you with "don't worry if you don't understand, it's notoriously difficult" or put you on a pedestal…

>>Everything is so dramatic... It's true, we Americans love the spectacular. Landing on the moon? Spectacular! The Super Bowl? Spectacular! Bombs over Baghdad? Spectacular! I'm not sure why, but we can always blame Los Angeles.

Who mostly just has spectacular traffic jams... which I think we can all agree are spectacular. Widest highways on the planet and you use them as a parking lot... you're a weird bunch :P

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#15

Post by ianai » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

kevhito wrote: post #11

imgabe wrote: post #4

> The findings suggest that a major factor in women’s decisions to leave STEM paths after Calculus I have nothing to do with ability, but confidence in their ability. (Though this particular study did not examine students’ grades in the class, a 2015 paper about college math concluded that women outperform men in Calc I.) I don't understand. They have no confidence, yet they outperform the men? So, they take the clas…

It makes sense to me, based on my own limited personal experience as a college prof (teaching CS). Particularly for our intro classes, it's fairly common for a male student to struggle all semester and scrape by with a D-, then without hesitation declare his intention to be a CS major. At the same time, a female will get a B or A- and walk away apparently thinking "I guess I'm just not good at this and CS just isn't…

That one rang a little too close to home. The reason I chose math was it was the hard subject that I could reliably overcome. Meaning, while I still had a hard time with concepts, I could eventually get there. I liked the challenge even if it hurt my GPA at times. Meanwhile I overheard many engineers group working on homework (copying one another) to ensure their GPAs were never in question.

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#16

Post by ianai » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:49 PM UTC

nnq wrote: post #13

Purely anecdotical, but most of the women with a STEM education or interest I've heard from had a strong visceral dislike for calculus and strong attraction towards algebra . And not in the US. And also including mathematics graduates. "I'd take any abstract algebra problem/work anytime, just keep differential equations of all kinds away from me" was smth I've heard once if memory serves well... And at at least in Eu…

I always found differential equations required a few, key insights and then a lot of grunt work. Pages and pages of algebra. You have to be sure you're right The whole time or it all comes apart.

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#17

Post by DarkContinent » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:52 PM UTC

arcanus wrote: post #6

imgabe wrote: post #4

> The findings suggest that a major factor in women’s decisions to leave STEM paths after Calculus I have nothing to do with ability, but confidence in their ability. (Though this particular study did not examine students’ grades in the class, a 2015 paper about college math concluded that women outperform men in Calc I.) I don't understand. They have no confidence, yet they outperform the men? So, they take the clas…

Some of this is in the eye of the beholder. I've seen people working 10+ hours in a class and still end up with an A, but found the process mentally exhausting. Others might barely work at it and end up with an A-, and think that it was pretty easy. At least in my experience as a math major undergraduate, calculus was a class that introduces students to rigorous proofs and new lines of thinking, but in examination se…

From what I've seen, the GPA obsession tends to be common to all students trying for some sort of grad/med/law school, and therefore not tied to major. Non-grad-school bound students, by contrast, are typically much more relaxed.

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#18

Post by feklar » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:57 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #4

> The findings suggest that a major factor in women’s decisions to leave STEM paths after Calculus I have nothing to do with ability, but confidence in their ability. (Though this particular study did not examine students’ grades in the class, a 2015 paper about college math concluded that women outperform men in Calc I.) I don't understand. They have no confidence, yet they outperform the men? So, they take the clas…

I was also under the impression that kids who plan out STEM majors typically bypass single variable (Calc I) and other freshman intro programs through advanced placement. https://www.cmu.edu/mcs/prospective/ap.html as an example

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#19

Post by timwaagh » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:57 PM UTC

perhaps researchers need to look into differences in average lifestyle. there are plenty of male students who don't do very much except study at that age. they are not very valuable at all. on the other hand, girls they get asked for all kinds of things, especially if they are in classes where they are already in the minority. I'd say it's pretty hard to combine calculus with a 'spare' time job promoting a good cause and a column in a magazine and sitting on the board of a student's association somewhere.

Re: Calculus at the heart of the STEM gender gap, study suggests

#20

Post by takk309 » Thu, Aug 04, 2016, 2:59 PM UTC

feel_the_need wrote: post #7

chrisseaton wrote: post #3

> the notoriously difficult college math class, Calculus I Are college courses in the United States standardised? Does every college have a course they call Calculus I and have the same content and level of difficulty? Calculus seems to be a really big deal in the US education system. In the UK we learn about differentiation and integration in what you would call highschool as just another topic among many, and I don…

American here. I took Calculus I in both highschool and college. I thought it was easy in highschool. The rigor of the college course was incomparable. Mostly because the way they asked the questions on the exams were far more demanding.

Agreed, Calculus I in university is more demanding. I had the fortune of using the same text in high school as in university. However, the difference between the classes was pace. In high school we had class every day and took a week to work through a chapter. In university we had class three times a week and went through a chapter each class. All told it took one semester (15 weeks) at university to cover what took an entire school year (30 weeks) in high school.