How gender influences performance assessment. Teacher-student gender interaction in focus.

Scientific Conference (2014, August)

The role of strategy knowledge for the application of strategies in complex problem solving tasks

in Technology, Knowledge and Learning (2014), 19

Education in the twenty-first century must prepare students to meet the challenges of a dynamic and interconnected world. However, assessment of students’ skills tends to focus primarily on static tasks ... [more ▼]

Education in the twenty-first century must prepare students to meet the challenges of a dynamic and interconnected world. However, assessment of students’ skills tends to focus primarily on static tasks. Therefore, it is not known whether knowledge about successful strategies displayed on static tasks can be transferred to interactive and dynamic environments. This study investigated whether students’ knowledge of a certain strategy (i.e., vary-one-thing-at-a-time, VOTAT) that was assessed in a paper-and-pencilbased scientific reasoning task as well as their fluid intelligence and learning orientation would be sufficient to explain variance in the application of the VOTAT strategy in solving an interactive complex problem solving (CPS) task (i.e., CPS strategy). Furthermore, we analyzed whether CPS strategy mediated the relation between the predictors (i.e., scientific reasoning, learning orientation, fluid intelligence) and CPS performance. The sample consisted of N = 3,191 Finnish students attending the 6th and 9th grades. Results revealed that all predictors were significantly related to CPS strategy, but a substantial amount of variance in CPS strategy remained unexplained (DeltaR-Square = .583). Furthermore, CPS strategy mediated the relation between the predictors and CPS performance. Three implications are discussed: Different demands on the problem solver, knowledge transfer from static versus interactive tasks, or metastrategic knowledge may explain the unexplained variance in CPS strategy. Additionally, the results of our mediation analyses emphasize the importance of measuring strategies via logfiles to gain a deeper understanding of determinants of students’ CPS performance. Finally, fostering motivational factors such as students’ learning orientation yields small improvements in CPS performance. [less ▲]

Teacher evaluation of student ability: what roles do teacher gender, student gender, and their interaction play?

in Educational Research (2014)

Background: Recent decades have been marked by an extensive movement to analyze bias in people’s thinking, especially in gender-related issues. Studies have addressed the question of gender bias in ... [more ▼]

Background: Recent decades have been marked by an extensive movement to analyze bias in people’s thinking, especially in gender-related issues. Studies have addressed the question of gender bias in classrooms on different levels—the use of gender in books, learning opportunities determined by students’ gender, or teachers’ gender preferences. Purpose: In this study, we aim to answer the question of whether and under which circumstances the interaction between teacher gender and student gender positively or negatively influences teachers’ evaluations of students’ performance, while controlling for objective measures of students’ performance. For instance, it could be possible that a teacher with the same gender as a student evaluates the student as better than opposite-gender students, independent of their objective performance. Sample: The sample consisted of n > 1,500 Finnish 6th grade students (Mage= 12.67) and their respective class teachers. Design and methods: Students completed several academic skills tests, including a mathematical thinking test, reading comprehension test, and scientific reasoning test. Furthermore, teachers provided their evaluation of each student, evaluating students’ performance in different school subjects and answering questions regarding their probability of academic success. To test whether the teacher-student gender interaction had an effect on the criterion variable, i.e. teachers’ evaluation of the students’ performance, multilevel analyses accounting for between- and within-class effects were applied. Thereby, the effect of students’ objective performance on teachers’ evaluation of the students and main effects of gender were controlled for as covariates. Results: The main results indicated that the interaction between student and teacher gender did not influence teachers’ evaluation of the students. However, regardless of their gender, teachers tended to evaluate girls as better than boys in first language performance (i.e. Finnish language) and potential for success in school. Teacher gender did not influence the evaluation. Conclusions: The results of the study suggest that the interaction between teacher and student gender is unlikely to be a source of possible bias in the evaluations of students in the Finnish educational system. [less ▲]