Females Crowd QRR Reviews

With the next offering of the Quantitative Reasoning Requirement (QRR) exam only eight days away, females are attending review sessions in overwhelmingly greater numbers than males.

In fact, some of the sessions have been entirely female.

"We did have one guy, but he left in the middle,' said Jalila E. Jefferson '98, who is enrolled in one of the review classes.

But while women dominate the review sessions, the ratio of women to men who did not pass the exam is less extreme, although still statistically significant.

"About forty-five percent of first year students are women, yet sixty-two percent of the people that did not pass the exam were women," said Richard E. Spoonts, associate director of the QRR office.

These statistics point to an obvious conclusion that "women do not pass as often as men," Spoonts said. "For some reason, in our society, women are not performing as well on these kinds of evaluative tests."

Professor of Anthropology Peter T. Ellison, who chairs the Subcommittee on Quantitative Reasoning, said this year's figures are not an anomaly.

"It's not a trend. It's a constant," Ellison said. "There's always been a higher sex ratio of women to men in the history of the QRR.

Ellison said he sees the phenomenon as part of the same nationwide pattern in which women tend to score lower on the math portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test than their male counterparts.

"I do not think that this represents any kind of gender bias on the part of the QRR. It's just a fact that we have to live with, as do other institutions," Ellison said.

Deborah Hughes Hallett, the only woman on the Subcommittee on Quantitative Reasoning, points toward societal factors that have pushed women away from math.

"I would say that for doing math well, having confidence has a lot to do with it, giving you the ability to concentrate so you can get through a difficult problem," said Hughes Hallett, who is professor of the practice in the teaching of mathematics.

"It's the little comments that society makes that are not devastating, but tend to chip away the confidence, leading to a vicious cycle that causes women to turn away from math," she said.

From a student's perspective, Jefferson pointed to classroom dynamics that have led to her own difficulties in math.

"Women don't receive the attention they need. Men are naturally more aggressive," Jefferson said. "Girls weren't expected to do well in math."

But several female students said the disproportionate numbers point to another conclusion.

"We're just more willing to admit that we need help," said Anna K. Duleep '98 who attends review classes.

"My experience is that girls tend to be more serious about such things as grades and tests," said Alicia I. Hogges '98.

And when students are forced to get remedial help, the ratio naturally represents the test results more closely.

A cursory count of the section list for Quantitative Reasoning 10, a course for sophomores who did not pass the QRR test, shows that about 45 of its 70 members are women

But several female students said the disproportionate numbers point to another conclusion.

"We're just more willing to admit that we need help," said Anna K. Duleep '98 who attends review classes.

"My experience is that girls tend to be more serious about such things as grades and tests," said Alicia I. Hogges '98.

And when students are forced to get remedial help, the ratio naturally represents the test results more closely.

A cursory count of the section list for Quantitative Reasoning 10, a course for sophomores who did not pass the QRR test, shows that about 45 of its 70 members are women