We ask questions of students in order to probe their understanding. We design our questions in such a way that we can assess a student's progress towards an accurate worldview. However, there is a consensus that a performance gap exists in many physics assessments, where male students outperform their female peers. While early work in this area…

This paper analyzes the impact of grading practices on the gender gap in student achievement. We examine the gender difference in the difference between teacher grading and scores on national exams to test whether there are gender differences associated with different grading systems. We use data on 21 subjects across humanities and sciences for…

Although gender differences in mathematics are smaller than they have been in the past, prominent voices still attribute these differences to a variety of fixed individual factors, such as genetic characteristics of men and women. We hold the alternative view that these differences can be ultimately attributed to malleable factors. From this…

For decades, the achievement gap between low-income Black males and other groups is sufficiently documented and persists. This study calls for a new practical curriculum approach that provides the necessary conditions for how low-income Black males learn, stay engaged, and assist in building the capacity for positive self-efficacy. The…

A literacy gap is a difference between a person's ability to read for understanding and meaning-making and their anticipated ability to read for their grade level. A larger proportion of males are at least one or more years below grade level in reading ability compared to their female peers. This reading difference is called the gender literacy…

Millennial students, shaped by the rapid change in technology and connectivity, pose a challenge in devising new teaching and learning pedagogies. The team-based learning (TBL) approach has been used in several disciplines and is indicated as an effective way to use active learning techniques to help students improve their academic performance.…

Gender gaps in mathematics achievement persist in many contexts and when visible, these gaps are paradoxical. Low-stakes measures of mathematics achievement such as grades and study behaviors favor girls, while gaps tend to reverse on assessments/ competitions. We explore whether different impacts of raising performance stakes could be one…

Gender gaps in mathematics achievement persist in many contexts and when visible, these gaps are paradoxical. Low-stakes measures of mathematics achievement such as grades and study behaviors favor girls, while gaps tend to reverse on assessments/competitions. We explore whether different impacts of raising performance stakes could be one…

Team-based learning (TBL) is a highly intense active learning pedagogy that uses a cycle of preclass preparation, formative assessment for readiness, mini-lectures, and complex team exercises. Consistent with the literature on active learning, prior research on TBL consistently shows its benefits for student outcomes as compared with previous…

A growing body of research shows that students benefit when they demographically match their teachers. However, little is known about how matching affects social-emotional development. We use student-fixed effects to exploit changes over time in the proportion of teachers within a school grade who demographically match a student to estimate…

This paper aims to explore and quantify the reading achievement of primary school students from three different regions in rural China. Using survey data on 23,143 students from Shaanxi, Guizhou, and Jiangxi provinces, we find although gaps in student reading achievement exist among the three sample provinces, all sample students exhibit low…

Gender gaps in exam scores or final grades are common in introductory college science and engineering classrooms, with women underperforming relative to men with the same admission test scores or college grade point averages. After failing to close a historically documented gender gap in a large introductory biology course using interventions…

We investigated effects of tracking students into higher, more academic, and lower, less academic, school types immediately after primary school (early tracking) instead of having a comprehensive secondary school system (late tracking) on school gender segregation and gender gaps in achievement outcomes. We assumed that, in early tracking…

This dissertation researched the scope of mathematics achievement disparities in the United States and how these disparities can be minimized through a self-efficacy lens. To answer pertinent research questions with data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2019 mathematics assessment in Grades 4, 8, and 12, gap analyses,…

Despite ongoing efforts to reform schools, the longstanding racial/ethnic achievement gap still persists, particularly for boys of color; in many cases, the gap is widening, particularly for students transitioning from elementary to middle school. The focus of this study was to examine the impact of effective instructional practices for struggling…