Girls out-perform boys in almost every HSC subjectCredit:Dominic Lorrimer
Glenn Fahey from the Centre for Independent Studies said boys were “increasingly on the losing end of the educational battle of the sexes”,and said a key reason was their poorer writing skills. “Of all the available predictors in educational domains,writing is the best predictor.”
“Boys’ persistent underachievement in writing does point to limited opportunities for boys in all potential job and post-school study aspirations,” he said.NAPLAN data shows that by year 9,one in five boys are below the minimum standard in writing.
Robin Nagy,director of Academic Profiles,which examines data for the independent sector,said the new figures showed the compulsory inclusion of English in the ATAR “systematically disadvantages boys overall,” he said.
“Some students are very driven and able in other spheres such as maths,computing,[and] science but may find their ATAR pulled down by their comparatively low English mark,even if they intend to study STEM at uni,” he said.
Andrew Martin,a Professor of Education at the University of NSW,also said the ATAR rule disadvantaged students who struggled with English. However,dropping it from the admissions rank might stop them trying. “We need to get the balance right.”
Alternatives could include adding a sentence about a student’s satisfactory completion of English on their HSC credential,or calculating an ATAR-E - a version that includes English - separately from an ATAR,and letting universities decide which to choose,he said.
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However,the head of the Secondary Principals Council,Craig Petersen,said dropping mandatory English from ATAR was the wrong approach. “What we ought to be doing is ensuring boys are engaged and are enjoying the study of English,” he said.
Petersen agreed writing was a key factor in HSC performance,and all the subjects dominated by girls involved longer responses that required them to use writing skills to communicate.
“Where there’s the simple identification and use of formula,boys tend to do well,but when you embed that in a problem that involves narrative discourse,then girls tend to do better,” he said. “The way a question is phrased can advantage girls over boys or vice versa.”
Nagy was one of the authors of new research about student motivation and engagement in maths,to be published inFrontiers in Psychology,that found despite having a higher positive motivation in the classroom,boys were less likely to invest effort.
The authors suspected the answer lay in gender stereotypes. “Research has shown that being seen to put effort into academic work may not fit with culturally-proscribed representation of masculinity,or what is considered cool,” the article said.
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