TY - JOUR
T1 - Brave boys and play-it-safe girls
T2 - Gender differences in willingness to guess in a large scale natural field experiment
AU - Iriberri, Nagore
AU - Rey-Biel, Pedro
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank researchers at various institutions and conferences for their helpful comments and feedback. We are thankful to the organizers of Concurso de Primavera de Matemáticas, who collaborated throughout the project. In particular, we would like to honor the memory of Joaquín Hernández, who put great effort and passion into this initiative and who, unfortunately, left us too soon. Iriberri acknowledges financial support from the Departamento Vasco de Educación, Política Linguística y Cultura (IT1367-19), Ministerio de Economía y Competividad and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional ( ECO 2015 -66027-P and PID2019-106146GB-I00). Rey-Biel acknowledges funding from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2019-107108GB-I00), Programa Ramón y Cajal and from Universidad Ramón Llull (ESADE).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020
PY - 2021/1
Y1 - 2021/1
N2 - Multiple-choice tests are extensively used to measure individuals’ knowledge and aptitudes. We study gender differences in willingness to guess using approximately 10,000 multiple-choice math tests, where, for all participants, in half of the questions, omitted answers were rewarded while for the other half they scored the same as wrong answers. Using a within-participant regression analysis, we show that female participants leave significantly more omitted questions than males when there is a reward for omitted questions. This gender difference, which is stronger among high ability and older participants, hurts female performance as measured by the final score and position in the ranking. We conclude that it is important to use gender neutral scoring rules that do not differentiate between wrong answers and omitted questions in order to accurately measure individuals’ knowledge and aptitudes.
AB - Multiple-choice tests are extensively used to measure individuals’ knowledge and aptitudes. We study gender differences in willingness to guess using approximately 10,000 multiple-choice math tests, where, for all participants, in half of the questions, omitted answers were rewarded while for the other half they scored the same as wrong answers. Using a within-participant regression analysis, we show that female participants leave significantly more omitted questions than males when there is a reward for omitted questions. This gender difference, which is stronger among high ability and older participants, hurts female performance as measured by the final score and position in the ranking. We conclude that it is important to use gender neutral scoring rules that do not differentiate between wrong answers and omitted questions in order to accurately measure individuals’ knowledge and aptitudes.
KW - Confidence
KW - Gender differences
KW - Natural field experiment
KW - Perceived ability in math
KW - Risk preferences
KW - Willingness to guess
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097428164&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103603
DO - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103603
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097428164
SN - 0014-2921
VL - 131
JO - European Economic Review
JF - European Economic Review
M1 - 103603
ER -