Published
A Gender Gap Analysis on Academic Performance in Engineering Students on Admission and Exit Standardized Tests
Análisis de brechas de género en el desempeño académico en pruebas de admisión y egreso en programas de Ingeniería
Keywords:
Gender gap, Academic performance, Standardized Tests, Regression Analysis, Data Mining (en)brecha de género, desempeño académico, pruebas estandarizadas, análisis de regresión, minería de datos (es)
This paper describes a gender-based research work on academic performance in engineering students. This study is based on the results of 9 469 students from Universidad Nacional de Colombia in the college`s Admission and exit standard tests (the latter known as Saber Pro Tests). Tools such as descriptive statistics, regression analysis, and data mining are used to estimate both gaps and leaps in scores per gender. These tools are not only used to estimate said gaps, but also to determine whether these gaps are broadened or closed throughout the university education process. The results show that there are still gender gaps in favor of men in the area of mathematics, even in STEM programs. On the contrary, a gap in favor of women is noted in the area of writing, although a decline is also observed in reading comprehension skills for both genders. On the other hand, in terms of the global scores, women improve more than men as a result of their undergraduate experience. Finally, purely disciplinary competencies exhibit a notorious gender gap in favor of men, which should lead to future reforms in this type of programs.
Este artículo describe una investigación sobre brechas de género en el desempeño académico de los estudiantes en programas de ingeniería. El estudio está basado en los resultados de 9 469 estudiantes de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia en las pruebas de admisión y egreso (estas últimas conocidas como pruebas Saber Pro. Se utilizan herramientas como la estadística descriptiva, el análisis de regresión y la minería de datos para estimar tanto brechas como saltos de puntaje por género, las cuales se utilizan no solo para estimar tales brechas, sino para determinar si las mismas han sido ampliadas o cerradas a lo largo del proceso de formación universitaria. Los resultados muestran que aún persisten brechas de género en favor de los hombres en el área de matemáticas, incluso en programas STEM. Por el contrario, es notoria una brecha en favor de las mujeres en el área de escritura, aunque también se observa un deterioro en las habilidades de comprensión de lectura para ambos géneros. Por otra parte, en términos de puntajes globales, las mujeres mejoran más que los hombres como resultado de la experiencia del pregrado. Finalmente, las competencias puramente disciplinares exhiben una notoria brecha de género en favor de los hombres, lo que debe llevar a futuras reformas en este tipo de cursos.
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