Sarah Earl-Novell

Gender and mode of assessment at university: should we assume female students are better suited to coursework and males to unseen examinations?

This paper reports on research conducted at the University of Sussex and examines whether female students have a particular preference for coursework, and whether such a preference is a key factor in their current undergraduate success. The performances of 638 students on courses whose assessment modes comprised both coursework and examinations were analysed to determine what, if any, gender differences were evident in relation to performances on each elements. In order to supplement the quantitative findings, qualitative data elicited via two online surveys, and focusing on student perceptions of coursework and examinations and attitudes to undergraduate study, are also discussed. Our findings contribute to the debate about gender differences across modes of assessment, and in particular take issue with the claim that female students, by contrast with males, both favour and are favoured by the use of coursework as opposed to unseen examinations in mode of assessment arrays.

An assessment of the extent to which subject variation between the Arts and Sciences in relation to the award of a First Class degree can explain the ‘gender gap’ in UK universities

There is a widely recognised national trend for girls to outperform boys at all levels of compulsory schooling. With few exceptions, however, most recent research has reported that, in relation to academic performance at university, men are proportionately over‐represented at the First Class level. A number of general hypotheses have been put forward to explain this phenomenon, including those that assume gender‐linked differences in cognitive and/or personality traits. A smaller proportion of research has given explanatory primacy to the broad subject area studied. More specifically, it has been alleged that the over‐representation of men within the First bracket is largely a function of a ‘compositional effect’ whereby men achieve proportionately more Firsts as there are more of them within the First‐rich Sciences. Based upon analysis of 1,707,408 students graduating between 1995 and 2002, this paper seeks to provide the most comprehensive exploration, to date, of this effect. It confirms that a substantial proportion of the ‘gender gap’ can be explained with reference to the male propensity to take degrees in first‐rich disciplines.

The relationship between perceptions of pre‐menstrual syndrome and degree performance1

This paper explores whether female undergraduates’ self‐reported experiences of pre‐menstrual syndrome (PMS) were associated with degree performance, operationalized as degree class outcome, in a sample of ‘high achieving’ students (N = 55). Students reported that PMS was disruptive to academic work (comprising lectures, seminars, writing essays, reading, examinations and interviews) but no association was found between degree performance and either the number of PMS symptoms reported or the reported disruption to each aspect of academic work.