Gender Academic Performance

The Decline of Academic Performance in Males Students

Willie Iles, national director of government relations for Boy Scouts of American, said that the state of male achievement was dire.

"I am convinced today that we have a national crisis, a national security issue, a state-of-emergency issue and a nation at risk.  If anybody cannot understand that, as we talk about investments and the return on those investments - which are our boys - then it is very clear we are going in the wrong directions"

According to many articles written throughout the last decade, male performance has consistently gotten worse in the subjects of reading and arithmetic.  There have been many article published in magazines such as Business Week's "The New Gender Gap" and Newsweek's "The Boy Crisis".  When the first lady Laura Bush started a campaign, this showed that there was a necessity to focus on boys' performance in school.  Unfortunately, since this time males performance has still been in question.

According to a student that was interviewed for Liz Dwyer's article "It's Time to Get Serious About Boosting Black Male's Academic Achievement," Shea Bunn stated that she thinks "girls do better than boys in school because they are more focused and try harder."  Shea also does not believe that "girls are any more intelligent, but they work harder which makes them more successful."  From this article, an expert believes that "the way teachers design their lessons in the United States is more beneficial for females than males.  Which a basic lecture may favor a female more, active hands-on activities may better favor a male." 

In order for male students to succeed, strategies must be implemented to retain these students.  In an article written by W. Kent Barnds from Augustana College, Barnds encourages these first steps to engage men with Career-Oriented Experiences.
Connect general education courses to career aspirations

• Offer career-oriented experiences earlier
• Offer or require work on campus
• Ensure the presence of male role models in advising and mentoring

Along with the career-oriented focus, Barnds encourages internships and externships, even as early as the first year.  This gives males exposure to career early in the process. 

The other area that Barnds encourages focus is to engage men in the classroom.  Barnds suggests that "if improving the academic performance and persistence of your male students is a high priority for your institution, this may be a critical investment," to create methods to improve "male learning styles or to achieve a gender balance of learning styles within the classroom."

• Ensure lecture content is available visually, as more men are visual rather than auditory learners (provide lecture notes online; encourage students to record lectures and then transcribe later; encourage verbatim note-taking; teach outlining methods and graphic representation of important material or timelines)
• Encourage more hands-on learning (through role play; through having students outline assigned reading and then review; through incentivizing interactive notebooks and note-keeping)
• Include competitive activities in the classroom

A video about the book "Why Boys Fail":
http://youtu.be/LUwYuZPPMDA