Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Two studies explore gender gaps that favor girls in low-stakeslearning contexts yet are not evident in high-stakesachievement measures. Study 1 (n = 386) combined controldata across multiple experiments testing student’s learningfrom a challenging proportional reasoning lesson to exploreconsistent gender gaps in favor of girls. This learning gap couldnot be explained by the baseline mathematics, affective,motivational, or Executive Function individual differences wemeasured. In Study 2 (n =178), we experimentally manipulatedpressure, raising the stakes by telling some students that theirperformance would determine whether or not their entire classreceived an incentive. Gender gaps in favor of girls remainedin the absence of pressure, but when external pressure wasimposed before or after learning, the female advantagedisappeared. These data suggest managing feelings of pressurein learning or testing contexts may be an important step inultimately increasing female representation in math-intensivefields.