Prior research suggests that males outperform females, on average, on multiple-choice items compared to their relative performance on constructed-response items. This paper characterizes the extent to which gender achievement gaps on state accountability tests across the United States are associated with those tests' item formats. Using roughly 8…

Prior research demonstrates the existence of gender achievement gaps and the variation in the magnitude of these gaps across states. This paper characterizes the extent to which the variation of gender achievement gaps on standardized tests across the United States can be explained by differing state accountability test formats. A comprehensive…

In the first systematic study of gender achievement gaps in U.S. school districts, we estimate male-female test score gaps in math and English Language Arts (ELA) for nearly 10,000 school districts in the U.S. We use state accountability test data from third through eighth grade students in the 2008-09 through 2014-15 school years. The average…