A levels - aaaagh!

[MacaroonMama]

This is from the Telegraph (photo not link).
Look at this incendiary headline! Oh so that's why girls had been outperforming boys - the exams were too easy! Make them harder, and of course the boys triumph. FFS.
Nothing productive to add, sorry, I just needed to share.

Ummm, yes, girls got better grades all the 6 years before because the exams were so easy and the boys just ... were too stupid to succeed at those easy exams? Makes no sense whatsoever.

(And amusingly, this may be because so many girls nowadays believe they are boys; I think it is more than the other way round. If they're actually counted as boys, that might explain the results ... )

I share your sentiments on that headline. It seems to be intended to suggest boys have beaten girls "to top grades" as a result of tougher exams (even though this would make no sense if the intention; when exams were apparently not as tough boys were taking them and getting lower grades on the whole).

Having read the article now it doesn't seem they're even merely suggesting it: The dramatic reversal of fortunes is thought to be fuelled by the new "tougher" A-levels, which have less coursework and no modules. Girls have outperformed boys every year since 2000.

They seem to want to suggest the results are as such due to them being "tough" so boys are doing better than girls. In actual fact I'd have thought, and have heard from others, coursework is quite important in preparing for university and the workplace so the reduction in it isn't a good thing, though this is another argument. The gap in A* and A grades is 0.5% as it happens, with boys at 26.6% and girls at 26.1%.

It's also interesting that when girls outperform boys overall in exams it's seen as a cause of concern, questions are asked about why this is and what can be done about it (I've seen numerous articles along those lines in the past). I highly doubt similar will be asked on this - it's more seen as the natural order of things being restored.

Having said that, this is interesting:

However, in the reformed subjects girls did better, with 7.3% awarded the highest A grade compared with 7% of boys, while the A and A grades combined were the same for both at 24.3%.

It's also interesting that when girls outperform boys overall in exams it's seen as a cause of concern, questions are asked about why this is and what can be done about it (I've seen numerous articles along those lines in the past). I highly doubt similar will be asked on this - it's more seen as the natural order of things being restored.

Yes, exactly. When there were no (official) female scientists (because women weren't allowed to attend university, duh), this was seen as "proof" of men's alleged superiority.

But now that girls outperform boys, no one says "Oh, heh, I guess women have been smarter all along!", no, there is much wailing about lack of male teachers, or the boys being made to sit on their behinds in school (which has always been the case, and in fact was much stricter in the good old times when only boys got education), or some or the other thing must be to blame.

Wtf .

I've also had rage over the BBC headline this morning 'Malala wins place at Oxford' - erm...I think you mean "earned" rather than "won" BBC

Meh. Statistics can be twisted in any way to say what you want !

And I'm sure the lovely Malala had an unconditional place .... I am a great fan but I'm sure any ibsitiution would be honoured to have her.

Indeed Vestal. Girls outperforming boys is widely seen as a problem which needs addressing and must be the result of some other factors rather than girls' intelligence and abilities, boys outperforming girls is just to be expected.

And I'm sure the lovely Malala had an unconditional place .... I am a great fan but I'm sure any ibsitiution would be honoured to have her.

Anywhere would be honoured to have her studying with them but she had a conditional offer of three As.

Yes the amount of hand wringing about girls outperforming boys does my nut. It's not like that translates into girls landing all the plum jobs and getting better life chances.
Totally agree this appears to be gloating about the natural order being restored.

Why is coursework and models seen as less important than sitting an exam on the day, when that's not how real life works??

Why are the skills required for thorough coursework, seen as less important than those required for cramming and memory recall on the day?

Indeed Datun. It seems quite clear that coursework and being able to structure and organise your workload to get it completed is, if anything, more relevant to university and especially many workplaces beyond that. Yet when it comes to exams it's almost derided and seen as an issue. I'm pretty confident I know why that is and I suspect you may be hinting at it there - it's an area which girls tend to be outperforming boys by quite a distance so has been fixated on as being an issue, seen as now being "remedied" by reformed A Level courses.

I bloody hated coursework - give me one win or lose it all exam any day, but even I can see that coursework is far more representative of my day to day work..

And yes, this hand-wringing that boys aren't always doing as well as girls, then gloating when they finally do better is galling.

I've also had rage over the BBC headline this morning 'Malala wins place at Oxford' - erm...I think you mean "earned" rather than "won" BBC

Have they changed that?
It says "gets place" in the headline now, and "gained a place" in the story itself.

Fortheloveofscience using the word 'win' with reference to getting a university place is very common, not unique to Malala at all. I've always though that it's an odd term but I don't think there's any disrespect implied in this case.

The reformed A-levels aren't supposed to be tougher, (unlike the new GCSEs), they're just linear and coursework has been binned. Comparable outcomes means that any drop in grades between this year and last year are down to this year's cohort being slightly weaker than last year.

Boys' performance improving relative to girls when there's a switch from coursework to terminal exams is unsurprising. Exactly the same thing happened when they ditched maths coursework at GCSE, and we should also expect to see this when the new GCSEs kick in.

Yes the amount of hand wringing about girls outperforming boys does my nut. It's not like that translates into girls landing all the plum jobs and getting better life chances.

Patriarchy already adjusted.
See The Simpsons, a family where the woman is much more intelligent and certainly had better grades in school than her husband, but he's the one with the paid job while she's a housewife. People complain that Homer Simpsons being an idiot is sexist against men, but in fact, it still harms women and benefits men.

As long as women are socialized to think that they should become housewives to much less intelligent men, the male establishment isn't threatened by clever girls.

And as long as employers can hire and promote men even when there's a much better qualified woman, nothing will change anyway.

The only thing that happens is that the more perceptive women notice the disparity between the number of highly qualified female candidates for highly paid jobs, and the number of women who then actually get those jobs.

Apparently the mere threat of women noticing sexism is so threatening that everything possible must be done to stop that from happening.

I wonder how much of the relative underperformance of girls in exam-heavy systems is down to good old stereotype threat that girls are constantly fed the lie told that they're not as good as exams as boys?

It's a bit OT, but 'win' seems a perfectly appropriate word for getting a place on any course which has more applicants than places - it is competitive.

If 'win' is common parlance then I'll let them off, just not a phrase I've come across .

The coursework one is tricky, I can see on the one hand why they ditched it - my niece's school had a huge problem with people getting tutors etc to do it for them and returning 100% marks that meant they could get a poor exam mark and still end up with an A. But equally it does disadvantage girls, and some of that has got to be because of the social pressure to believe they are more prone to worrying/panicking than performing well under pressure...

Boys' underperformance in coursework is usually put down to the fact that girls are generally more conscientious and hardworking over an extended period of time where boys are more likely to dash off any old crap at the last minute.
Boys better at exams is put down to greater risk-taking and being more competitive.

Some interesting stats on boys v girls performance at A-level this year:

Male candidates tend to receive far more A*s than female candidates, and that trend progressed this year.

Almost nine per cent of male candidates gained an A* compared with last year when it was just 8.5 per cent.

The number of women getting an A* remained at 7.7 per cent.

However, girls do better across As, BCs and Cs, meaning that around 79 per cent get one of these grades. Only 75 per cent of boys achieve the same.

Male candidates received higher numbers of A and A*s than female candidates in: German (+5.7%), chemistry (+4%), computing (+3.6%) and English literature (+1.2%)

Female candidates did significantly better in A and A*s than their male peers in: PE (+12.8%) and psychology (+8.8%)

Glad I posted as loads of interesting comments here. I think it does reflect the coursework being replaced by finals specs of the new exams. I hadn't even considered how unlike the real world this is (but then most of my employment history is in education).
Off to think about The Simpsons and patriarchy now. Love this board!

I think the take home from this is that:

Whatever boys are (only very slightly) better at is tougher, more challenging and a better indication of real intelligence.

But whatever girls are better at is easier, not quite so important and adjusted purposefully to favour girls (quite possibly by the feminist conspiracy in education).

Basically, know your place girls.