“Who’s Better at Math, Boys or Girls?”: Changes in Adolescents’ Math Gender Stereotypes and Their Motivational Beliefs from Early to Late Adolescence

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

-important topic which is 'sliced and diced' in new ways with two different data sets at two different time periods

-particularly relevant and helpful result to examine these math gender stereotypes development over time and within and across gender and racial/ethnic identities

-particularly noteworthy result when examining the math gender stereotypes within the groups of black and latinx females

 

Author Response

RESPONSE: Thank you. We appreciate that you feel our paper covers an important and relevant topic.

Reviewer 2 Report

I had the opportunity to review the manuscript titled, “Who’s better at math, boys or girls?”: Changes in adolescents’ math gender stereotypes and their motivational beliefs from early to late adolescence. The authors examine math gender stereotypes and motivational beliefs changes in adolescents across two datasets. Below I have made some suggestions on how it could be strengthened.

 

The contributions of the study seemed to get lost.

            Developmental changes section – this seems to be the main set-up for this paper. Therefore it could be elaborated on more, such as including the sample demographics of the previous studies (like seen on page 4) and limitations that this study takes on. Just saying that findings are inconsistent here doesn’t help to highlight the contributions of this study. Also, the second paragraph in the intro (p.1) should incorporate that nuance more. Right now it sounds like the authors are saying “I think this hasn’t been done before” but that’s not accurate.

            Gender differences section – Currently, this section just reads as a repeat of the social status theory explanation section. Do the other researchers only offer any other theories as the explanation for why boys endorse stereotypes more than girls? Including that would also help highlight the contributions of this study.

            Incorporation of more nuanced research and discussing it in more nuanced ways – One example of where this needs to happen in the stereotypes section, stereotype threat work with Asian women would provide more depth. Another example of where this would be helpful is on p. 19 where teacher practices are mentioned. White female students comprise a significant proportion of some advanced STEM classes in high school. Why are these stereotypes persisting despite representation? This effort of bringing in more in-depth work that has come out in recent years throughout the literature review would help move the field forward

 

Also, why is this relevant now? The data being somewhat old is mentioned as a limitation. Explicit explanation of why it is still useful would strengthen the paper.

 

Language that is more specific and/or fine-grained would help move the field forward.

Recognizing diversity within groups - Southeast Asians don’t perform in school settings the same way East Asians and South Asians. Immigrant African Americans are also different from African Americans who are descendants of enslaved people. I don’t know if Maryland had the many African-born Blacks in the 90’s but if so, this recognition would be important.

            On p. 4 (citation 41), there is a review of a study that had 30% Black students in the sample. This is a sizable Black sample. Later on line 184-185 the authors claim that most work is reported from non-diverse samples. Is the previous study non-diverse? Seems like the authors need to define what they consider diverse. I was also surprised to see how few Asians and Latinx students were in the MADICS sample. Based on the authors criticisms in the lit review section, it seems the MADICS dataset would also not be a diverse enough dateset to use for the work they want to carry out. The limited diversity in the MADICS dataset was not recognized in the Limitations section either.

            3.2. hypo 2. The statement on p. 13 lines 508-509 seem misleading to claim “across all racial/ethnic groups in both datasets.” Making it clear that it was gender main effects would be less confusing.

 

Current study section – authors point out the value of conceptual replication. I dig it. And in that case, the tone of the literature review could do better to set that up. Most of the lit review claims “no one has done this before” while presenting work that has done research that are really similar. Authors could lean into it more and frame their study as more overarching of all this other previous work.

            Hypotheses claim replication across the two datasets. More elaboration on why is needed. As the authors pointed out, efforts have been made to tackle these issues of gender stereotype and gender gaps in motivation, achievement, etc. Why would we expect to see it still holding true across the decades?

 

I also suggest keeping the literature review focused on US previous research. The mention of Italy and China felt like a jump since they were not elaborated on. Also mixing research from Asia and that done in the US with Asian American students was distracting, especially since there is also work on gender egalitarian beliefs being endorsed differently by those in Asia vs Asian Americans living in the US. The discussion would also be strengthened by delving into US context more. Why is this a persistent issue in the US, a country that tends to rank more gender egalitarian compared to other countries?

 

Typo? Transitional p. 2, line 79.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

R1. I had the opportunity to review the manuscript titled, “Who’s better at math, boys or girls?”: Changes in adolescents’ math gender stereotypes and their motivational beliefs from early to late adolescence. The authors examine math gender stereotypes and motivational beliefs changes in adolescents across two datasets. Below I have made some suggestions on how it could be strengthened.

RESPONSE: Thank you for your helpful feedback. We have addressed your comments below.

Comments regarding: The contributions of the study seemed to get lost.

R2. Developmental changes section – this seems to be the main set-up for this paper. Therefore it could be elaborated on more, such as including the sample demographics of the previous studies (like seen on page 4) and limitations that this study takes on. Just saying that findings are inconsistent here doesn’t help to highlight the contributions of this study. Also, the second paragraph in the intro (p.1) should incorporate that nuance more. Right now it sounds like the authors are saying “I think this hasn’t been done before” but that’s not accurate.

RESPONSE: We have now added sample demographics to this portion of the literature review. Although you recommended below to exclude non-U.S. research (see Comment R11), we elected to discuss some relevant non-U.S. research here given there are few studies that explore changes or cross-sectional differences in gender stereotypes in the U.S. and we did not want to ignore other research. However, we now clearly state the countries that the research is from and discuss how it is similar and different from U.S.-based research (p. 3). Additionally, we have replaced text that simply stated that something has not been studied or that there are inconsistent findings with a deeper discussion of the current literature (e.g., pp. 1, 3, 4, & 5). Instead, when appropriate, we highlight the contributions (such as replication) and why it is important to investigate this topic among the study population.

R3. Gender differences section – Currently, this section just reads as a repeat of the social status theory explanation section. Do the other researchers only offer any other theories as the explanation for why boys endorse stereotypes more than girls? Including that would also help highlight the contributions of this study.

RESPONSE: We have now added alternative explanations to why boys may endorse stereotypes more than girls (p. 3).

R4. Incorporation of more nuanced research and discussing it in more nuanced ways – One example of where this needs to happen in the stereotypes section, stereotype threat work with Asian women would provide more depth. Another example of where this would be helpful is on p. 19 where teacher practices are mentioned. White female students comprise a significant proportion of some advanced STEM classes in high school. Why are these stereotypes persisting despite representation? This effort of bringing in more in-depth work that has come out in recent years throughout the literature review would help move the field forward

RESPONSE: Thank you, we now discuss stereotype threat work regarding Asian American women in the introduction (pp. 4-5). We have also elaborated on why these gender stereotypes persist despite representation in advanced math courses (p. 19). Finally, we have added nuance in various places throughout the paper, such as adding greater detail about sample demographics (e.g., pp. 3- 5) and the U.S. context (e.g., pp. 1 & 18).

R5. Also, why is this relevant now? The data being somewhat old is mentioned as a limitation. Explicit explanation of why it is still useful would strengthen the paper.

RESPONSE: We have added justification as to why this is still relevant (p. 1) and why we are investigating this question using these datasets (p. 2).

Comments regarding: Language that is more specific and/or fine-grained would help move the field forward.

R6. Recognizing diversity within groups - Southeast Asians don’t perform in school settings the same way East Asians and South Asians. Immigrant African Americans are also different from African Americans who are descendants of enslaved people. I don’t know if Maryland had the many African-born Blacks in the 90’s but if so, this recognition would be important.

RESPONSE: We have added greater detail about race/ethnicity in the Methods section. Unfortunately, we do not have detailed data regarding ethnicity; we have now added this to the Limitations section (p. 21).

R7. On p. 4 (citation 41), there is a review of a study that had 30% Black students in the sample. This is a sizable Black sample. Later on line 184-185 the authors claim that most work is reported from non-diverse samples. Is the previous study non-diverse? Seems like the authors need to define what they consider diverse. I was also surprised to see how few Asians and Latinx students were in the MADICS sample. Based on the authors criticisms in the lit review section, it seems the MADICS dataset would also not be a diverse enough dateset to use for the work they want to carry out. The limited diversity in the MADICS dataset was not recognized in the Limitations section either.

RESPONSE: Thank you, we now address that there are some studies that include diverse samples, although it is still important to conduct more research among diverse samples (p. 1). Furthermore, in the Limitations section we note that the MADICS dataset was limited to only Black and White families (p. 21).

R8. 3.2. hypo 2. The statement on p. 13 lines 508-509 seem misleading to claim “across all racial/ethnic groups in both datasets.” Making it clear that it was gender main effects would be less confusing.

RESPONSE: Thank you. We now make it clear that there was a gender main effect and have deleted the part about “across all racial/ethnic groups” (p. 13).

R9. Current study section – authors point out the value of conceptual replication. I dig it. And in that case, the tone of the literature review could do better to set that up. Most of the lit review claims “no one has done this before” while presenting work that has done research that are really similar. Authors could lean into it more and frame their study as more overarching of all this other previous work.

RESPONSE: Thank you. We have now deleted or softened the language related to these claims and instead strengthen the focus on the value of replication in the Introduction (e.g., p. 1) or discuss why the research is important outside of novelty (e.g., pp. 3-5).

R10. Hypotheses claim replication across the two datasets. More elaboration on why is needed. As the authors pointed out, efforts have been made to tackle these issues of gender stereotype and gender gaps in motivation, achievement, etc. Why would we expect to see it still holding true across the decades?

RESPONSE: Thank you. We have now added justification as to why we expect findings to replicate across the two datasets despite changes in historical time (pp. 5-6).

R11. I also suggest keeping the literature review focused on US previous research. The mention of Italy and China felt like a jump since they were not elaborated on. Also mixing research from Asia and that done in the US with Asian American students was distracting, especially since there is also work on gender egalitarian beliefs being endorsed differently by those in Asia vs Asian Americans living in the US. The discussion would also be strengthened by delving into US context more. Why is this a persistent issue in the US, a country that tends to rank more gender egalitarian compared to other countries?

RESPONSE: Thank you. We have now removed much of the research that took place outside the U.S. (e.g., Asian and Europe). In places where we have kept this research (due to limited U.S.-based research) we now clearly state the countries that the research was conducted in. Additionally, we have added information about the U.S. context (p. 1).

R12. Typo? Transitional p. 2, line 79.

RESPONSE: Thank you. We have corrected this to “traditional”.

Reviewer 3 Report

The research topic is relevant in the field. The study results will be useful for schools, parents, and other role models to be aware of the underlying beliefs in order to lessen stereotypes. As a result, it will promote practices that strengthen the concept that math is equally accessible to both boys and girls and contribute to the expansion of interests and aspirations.

Author Response

RESPONSE: Thank you. We are pleased to hear that you believe our paper is relevant to the field and will be useful for schools and parents.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I found the revisions great. I hope the authors are happy with the changes.