How Negative Expectancies And Attitudes Undermaine Females’ Math Confidence And Performance

Societies as a whole believe females are less mathematically capable than males. This belief is communicated to parents and teachers, who pass it along to students. Girls come to view their failures in mathematics as evidence that they are indeed inferior and to view their successes as flukes. This belief reinforces the belief that females are not capable of doing well in mathematics. Females stop taking advanced mathematics courses in high school or college, believing them too difficult. In the end, the expectancies of their parents and teachers are fulfilled and society was further “proof” of females’ inferior mathematical ability. Refer Diagram 1 as Cycle of Low Expectancy on Female Students by Parents and Teachers

The findings by researchers further found that the differences between males’ and females’ performance is quite small. There is no significant difference between boys and girls mathematical achievement in elementary school and few differences at any age (Feingold, 1988, NAEP, 1983; Shipman, Krantz & Silver, 1992). These differences are getting smaller over time (Hyde & Linn, 1988).

            In future, as differences decrease, parents and teachers will see more of that female are capable of performing well in mathematics. This will lead to more parental and academic support, further enhancing females’ ability. In this way, the cycle may be broken