tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9818962.post1796472015900821307..comments2024-03-20T13:10:11.477+05:30Comments on nanopolitan: Some interesting developments to watch for ...Abihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06790560045313883673noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9818962.post-47446815553971177362007-05-01T10:00:00.000+05:302007-05-01T10:00:00.000+05:30Abi: I posted this on Vivek's blog as well, you mi...Abi: <BR/><BR/>I posted this on Vivek's blog as well, you might be interested in this, if you haven't already read it. <BR/><BR/>http://www.inform.umd.edu/UMS+State/UMD-Projects/MCTP/Essays/WomenAndMath.txt<BR/><BR/>Since I took it off google, not sure of the credibility of this article but it cites some interesting research. Some parts that I found aprticularly relevant: <BR/><BR/>Steven Spencer and Claude Steele (1994) suggest that when female<BR/>students are frustrated by the difficulty of math problems, they<BR/>associate this frustration with the belief that they as women are not supposed to be able to do math. This leads to anxiety, which impairs performance. To test this hypothesis. Spencer and Steele (1994) performed a number of experiments utilizing males and females who were highly skilled at mathematics and highly motivated to perform well. As was predicted, females scored as well as males on a test of moderate<BR/>difficulty, but underperformed relative to males when the test was more difficult. This is in keeping with earlier findings.<BR/><BR/> This same difficult test was given to another group of students<BR/>with one minor change in the procedure: some students were told that the test was gender-fair (i.e. females performed as well as males on the test), while others were told that the test differentiated between males<BR/>and females. When females believed that they could do as well on the test as males, they did so. There were no significant differences between males' and females' performance in this condition. Females who expected<BR/>the test to be difficult for females showed the usual pattern of<BR/>underperforming relative to males.<BR/><BR/>***<BR/>Some other interesting points are: <BR/><BR/>1. Women are less confident than men about their mathematical ability than men even at the same level of performance. <BR/><BR/>2. Parents attribute men's success to innate ability and women's to hard work. <BR/><BR/>3. Taking up hard math courses (beyond the minimum required for graduation) is correlated more with perceived ability than with actual performance. (My question: could this apply for difficult exams as well?) <BR/><BR/>4. Women have lower confidence in their perceived ability to performn on a math test. <BR/><BR/>5. Women are less willing to approach new material. <BR/><BR/>To the extent that the JEE is the most difficult math exam and to the extent that it tests new material, to the extent that the communication might be that the JEE currently might be more about "innate ability" rather than "hard work" and to the extent that women might be less confident abotu their chances of success even at the same math performance as men, any test like the JEE might be biased. <BR/><BR/>I suggested to Vivek that perhaps the IITs should do an intervention like the one mentioned above and see if there are any differences. <BR/><BR/>n!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9818962.post-85211199875728374222007-05-01T00:17:00.000+05:302007-05-01T00:17:00.000+05:30RTI is cool! I didn't like the fact that JEE was l...RTI is cool! I didn't like the fact that JEE was like a black box; it definitely needs to be more transparent. <BR/><BR/>Abi, I don't quite like the idea of setting a cap on the number of attempts a person can make. In the present scenario, if someone wants more first timers, one could say that in case of a tie, the candidate with the fewer number of attempts gets preference. <BR/><BR/>I don't see any problem why someone shouldn't be allowed to take the entrance exam 10 times. If you want to discourage coaching, do something else. Restricting the number of attempts is simply going to increase the pressure in the minds of people who are really desperate to get into IITs.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com