This included a question pointing out that more (university) students are male than female, a higher percentage of male students passes their maths tests and a higer percentage of male students get a doctor’s degree. Yes, that is true, but it did make me uncomfortable, being female and taking a maths test.

Other examples were questions involving Bernoulli distributions - the two possible results being “male” and “female” - with the questions constructed so “male” was the obvious choice for “winning” and “female” meant “losing”, also including a distinct trend to give the percentage of males in a group and having people calculate the percentage of females themselves.

The professor also in the first practise session flat out said that women don’t do as well as men in this class - and five minutes later misheard a female student’s correct answer and told her she was wrong. I really don’t assume any malignancy on his part, but that was really awkward.

Thanks for confirming that I wasn’t merely being paranoid, Susan.

I wouldn’t know about that. I didn’t address your insult, because it wasn’t worthy of notice. I prefer logical arguments to personal attacks, myself.

crys, for a truly head-desk experience, go read that book by Christina Hoff Sommers. She does an excellent job of pointing out how assembly-line schooling pressures children to conform, shut up, and move along at the proper pace–and then every few pages some neuron snaps in her brain and she starts in about how it’s because schools are run by FEMINISTS who HATE BOYS like her precious sons and they OPPRESS BOYS and that’s the whole problem. Because, you know, girls are just sorta naturally sheeplike and never do anything but sit quietly in class.

(Meta to self: Why waste your time? Susan’s probably one of those people who thinks there aren’t any “normal” girls who are anything but quiet, neat and dependent, and boys who aren’t loud, messy and independent are future sissy-men.)

Memo to self: ignore rude people who think personal insults are the equivalent of logical arguments.

In both my experience as a female child and as a teacher of children, it was blatantly obvious to me that boys got/get the lion’s share of the attention. Sure, girls get called on to run errands–being servants is our/their proper capacity in life. It’s hardly a sign of favour.

And all that focussing on boys who aren’t working while ignoring girls doing the same–exactly how does that indicate a preference for girls? How is being invisible better? As a teacher, it was obvious to me that boys acted up in class precisely in order to get my attention, while the girls were quiet because they’d already given up on expecting anything from adults.

And of course, when I had to discipline the boys, they always whined, “You favour the girls!!” even though they’d gone out of their way to get me to notice them in the first place.

Huh. My experience as a mother of both is that the school system puts a premium on neat, clean and docile, period. Do you have any idea how schools react to normal little girls who are loud, messy and independent? Hint: Even worse than they react to boys ditto.

(Meta to self: Why waste your time? Susan’s probably one of those people who thinks there aren’t any “normal” girls who are anything but quiet, neat and dependent, and boys who aren’t loud, messy and independent are future sissy-men.)

If you’re a neat, clean, docile little girl, you’re In With Flynn in the school system. They’re gonna love you. If you’re a normal young male, you’re too loud, too messy, too independent, you don’t keep quiet enough, and you make way too much noise. Expect to be given a lot of talkings-to, expect to be on Ritalin soon. (In my day, expect to be hit with a lot of rulers.)

If boys are being called on in class more, it could as much be to keep them engaged, knowing that boys disengage much sooner than girls due to their brain chemistry, than to short change girls. Boys tend to need more interaction than girls in the classroom to succeed. They are more restless, more active. They get bored more easily.

I would love to go to single sex classrooms. That would solve the problem altogether. Allocate equal funding per student and equal staffing per student, and allow teachers to use different methods based on the need of the students. I would also seek to get more make teachers into the male classrooms, instead of having 80% of grade school teachers be women. It would also take away the huge distraction for teen boys of having girls in the classroom (and vice versa), and would allow them to concentrate on their studies. I would like to see boys and girls going to college and graduating at equal rates.

That is the claim that you are making, and it is one that you still haven’t supported, and it is a claim that the blind studies Amp referenced make it even harder for you to provide support for. The degree to which stereotype threat biases the results is the thing being studied. If stereotype threat did not exist, then the methods used to cause subjects to perform worse would not have any effect.

Are you saying that the students won’t figure out “oh, they’re testing stereotypes“, if the assistants handing the papers don’t know it?

If I conduct a study to see if women are good at math, and I expect they aren’t, and if my beliefs lead me to trigger stereotype threat in my female subjects, then my study has been tainted by experimenter’s bias.

But the stereotype exists (as long as the group in question is underrepresented, and as long as it is underrepresented, there is a stereotype…), whether on invidual (claims to) believe(s) it or not.

Indeed, stereotype threat can be seen as a form of experimenter’s bias that is endemic to academic testing (and one that doesn’t even require bias on the part of the experimenter).

Indeed it can. How can this statement be proven wrong? (honestly, the non-falsifiability…)

So your main point is that the idea of stereotype threat is sometimes possibly over used by some people in some arguments?

One point, surely, and a rather important one, considering that even the stereotype threat studies (in their absent stereotype threat group) can’t account for the whole difference, which is often omitted.

And I don’t think we have to search too far for those!

I suppose I could settle for something like: Sure it can have a possible effect and may account for some of the differences. I wouldn’t mind that, at all.

However accepting it as the lynchpin of inequal represantation… No.

It’s an interesting (if very dubious, IMHO) concept, and I tend to agree with “the endemic experimenter bias” -hypothesis.

I think what is tripping you up is that stereotype threat is a form of experimenter’s bias. If I conduct a study to see if women are good at math, and I expect they aren’t, and if my beliefs lead me to trigger stereotype threat in my female subjects, then my study has been tainted by experimenter’s bias.

Indeed, stereotype threat can be seen as a form of experimenter’s bias that is endemic to academic testing (and one that doesn’t even require bias on the part of the experimenter).

But the fact that stereotype threat is experimenter’s bias does not mean that any study of stereotype threat is tainted by experimenter’s bias. That is the claim that you are making, and it is one that you still haven’t supported, and it is a claim that the blind studies Amp referenced make it even harder for you to provide support for. The degree to which stereotype threat biases the results is the thing being studied. If stereotype threat did not exist, then the methods used to cause subjects to perform worse would not have any effect.

Your theory that stereotype threat is just a result of experimenter bias thus doesn’t hold water.

I recall only passionately arguing that Steele’s very likely contained a an experimenter bias.

For instance, some experiments have been done in which the test subjects are reminded of the stereotype — or not reminded — via a videotaped presentation of some sort. The videos look identical on the outside; which video is shown to subjects is random chance. The experimenter doesn’t know which video they watched - and thus whether or not the viewers have been reminded of the stereotype or not - until after standardized tests have been completed by the subject.

In effect, you are saying that my claim was that the interviewer has to talk about with them one on one (it was not). Why does the video affect the fact that the subjects can’t figure out what is being studies (especially now that stereotype threat is public “knowledge”)?

In effect, again you are only proving that you can make videos that affect subsequent test performance. Sure thing. I’d probably score lower after watching something that I have emotional investment with too, rather than something neutral.

My point is largely this: I do not reject the notion that one can not influence test scores, or that low expectations may not sometimes lead to low results. My point is that it is not the end-all of describing all differences, that it is used as a theory to prove that stereotypical differences are caused by people being aware of stereotypes.

Unfortunately, it is often (mostly, like in this thread at #5) presented as a significant, ’scientifically proven’ fact. What is the political implication behind the stereotype threat (as we know certain stereotypes) is that as long these stereotypes exist, the difference in performance (as long as it is according to a stereotype, which are formed by… differences in performance) can always be claimed to be caused by this threat. Always.

What would be a historical example of (first) removal of the stereotype threat, and the stereotype goes away? It usually goes the other way, as the stereotype is proved to be wrong. This contradicts the larger implications of the stereotype threat directly.

What stereotype threat could you test with a double blind experimenter with no interaction? Not a single one, since the very test requires an interaction, however subtle it may be, where the test subjects are reminded of the stereotype.

There are a lot of ways.

For instance, some experiments have been done in which the test subjects are reminded of the stereotype — or not reminded — via a videotaped presentation of some sort. The videos look identical on the outside; which video is shown to subjects is random chance. The experimenter doesn’t know which video they watched - and thus whether or not the viewers have been reminded of the stereotype or not - until after standardized tests have been completed by the subject.

That one is from Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 12, 1615-1628 (2002). But it’s hardly the only example of a blinded stereotype threat study out there.

Another example, this time from Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 27(4), 329–336. The students were randomly assigned to one of three groups. In these groups, the students were handed a questionnaire which might activate a stereotype threat in some but not all of the students. Or the questionnaire might be worded neutrally. The experimenters handing out the surveys had no idea whether or not the questionnaires they were handing out contained a reminder of stereotypes or not.

That’s just two examples of many (other examples: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002, Vol. 83, No. 3, 638–647; Child Development Volume 74 Page 498 - March 2003; etc, etc, etc.). The fact is, stereotype threat has been found, again and again, even in properly blinded studies. Your theory that stereotype threat is just a result of experimenter bias doesn’t hold water.

It has to do with whether you’re arguing sincerely.

?

You keep saying this, but you continue to provide nothing to support your claim.

Nothing?

I have provided support to this claim repeatedly. Read my posts #32, #36, #43, for example.

I can’t really think of any new ways to explain to you why studying how the way that test questions are presented affects the performance of some students on those test questions is not a demonstration of experimenter bias. If you can’t see that those are two completely separate things, I really can’t help you.

Because… The experimenter is studying this difference and corresponds with the subjects, thus leading to the possibility of them being influenced by him/her!

This is the fourth time, Charles.

If you can’t see that those are two completely separate things, I really can’t help you.

No, I can’t help you.

They are not, and I’m not going to pretend that they are different because, well, they just are.