Grade Expectations as a Function of Sex, Academic Discipline,

and Sex of Instructor David Cole*, Kraig King

Occidental College

Andrew Newcomb

University of Minnesota

Twelve hundred and fifty college students starting introductory courses in thirteen academic disciplines were asked to predict their grade in the course. Results showed that overall, males predicted higher grades for themselves than did females (p < .001). This held true for entering freshmen as well as for those with previous college experience. The phenomena was noted in 26 of 37 classes tested, including 7 of 9 in the natural sciences, 11 of 13 in the social sciences, but only 8 of 15 in the humanities, Sex of the instructor was irrelevant, raising the question of whether female instructors as role models have the positive effect upon women students that has been claimed. The differences found were slight, but persistent. Both sexes predicted very high grades. The data suggest that sex differences in prediction were not based on a female sense of incom- petence, but upon a greater willingness among males to make highly positive predictions.

The widespread current interest in the impact of socialization on sex roles has brought renewed attention to the possible impact of such socialization on differential anticipation of academic success between the sexes, and upon actual performance in academic situa- tions. In elementary school, females are superior to males in aca- demic achievement (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1973; Kagan, 1964). This

*Requests for reprints should be sent to David Cole, Department o f Psychology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, California 90041.

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superiority decreases with age; Stein and Bailey (1973) propose that this i s due to a decrease in the female’s expectancy o f the attainment of excellence during adolescence. Female ninth graders have a lower expectancy of success than female sixth graders have. The opposite i s true of males. Many authors, including Crandall (1968) and Stein (1971), have maintained that expectancy of success i s an important factor in motivation for achievement and in performance. Stein feels that the decrease in expectancy o f success in females during adoles- cence can be attributed to a consolidation of sex-role identification and the sex-role stereotype that females are less competent than males are in certain academic areas. The generally greater success o f achievement motivation measures as predictors o f male, as opposed to female, performance is well known (French & Lesser, 1964).

Crandall (1969) found that college women expect to receive lower course grades than males expect, even though their grades may actually be higher. Vaughter, Gubernick, Matossian, and Haslett (1 974) replicated Crandall’s findings and proposed that sex differ- ences in expectancy are related to two sex-role stereotypes: 1) the assumption of many females that they are incompetent to excel (and the assumption of many males that they are competent to excel); and 2) a response set for verbal modesty o f achievement in females and confidence in males.

Both the data by Crandall (1969) and Vaughter e t al. (1974) are limited. Crandall gives only the grade-point averages, year in college, and sex of her subjects. The data by Vaughter e t al. are based on student predictions and performance in only one academic disci- pline-psychology. Further, student predictions of success were cate- gorized only into the broad grade dichotomy A vs. non-A. Little was done to carefully control for the student’s general history o f aca- demic success. Basically, Vaughter e t al. showed that men in intro- ductory psychology predicted higher grades for themselves than did women in the same course. This persisted in an advanced psychology course, but women’s grade expectations there apparently were posi- tively influenced by previous success in psychology courses.

The present study sought to expand upon past research by testing for sex differences in a wide range of introductory courses in the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. Co- varient analysis allowed the student’s past level of academic per- formance to be taken into account. Student predictions were cate- gorized over the entire range actually predicted by them, from A to C, including plus and minus subscripts. In addition, it was possible to

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investigate possible interaction between the sex o f the student and the sex of the instructor, since care was taken to include a significant number of instructors of each sex across disciplines.

METHOD

Subjects in the study were 644 males and 606 females starting introductory courses in various disciplines in either the fall term of 1974, or the spring or fa l l terms of 1975. The students were enrolled in a highly selective liberal arts college in California-a college where students generally have a high regard for their own academic ability and where concern over the social status of women seems, subjectively, to be a matter of considerable interest. Testing was done in the following classes: Art, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English, Film, Geol- ogy, Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Spanish.

Ail classes were visited in the first f ive minutes of the first class session and each student was asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire, indicating the student’s year in college, sex, accumulated grade-point average (for entering freshmen, the high school gpa was obtained), and the grade they expectcd to get in the class. O f the classes visited, 9 were in the natural sciences, 13 in the social sciences, and 15 in the humanities. Fourteen of the instructors were women and 23 were men.

RESULTS

Males predicted higher grades for themselves, on the average, in 26 of the 37 classes visited. This was true in 7 of the 9 courses in the natural sciences, in 11 of the 13 courses in the social sciences, but in only 8 of the 15 courses in the humanities. Analysis of covariance showed that the students previous academic record was o f no signifi- cance in prediction; however, this finding must be qualified in light of the fact that practically al l the students had previous records of a B or better in both high school and college courses. In actual achievement, the mean grades ultimately achieved by men and women were not significantly different; indeed they were practically identical for the two sexes.

Because class sizes varied from 9 to over 100 students, stat ist ical significance of mean differences in grades predicted reached accept- able levels in only a few of the largest classes. In no class did women predict significantly higher grades for themselves than did men. Combining classes, the tendency for males to predict higher grades

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D A V I D COLE, K R A l G KING, ANDREW NEWCOMB

Table 1

Mean Grade Predictions

Sample Male Mean Female Mean t d f Rob.

Entering freshmen 3.47 3.37 2.59 481 < . O l

Returning students 3.54 3 .45 2 .95 767 < . 0 1

A l l combined 3.52 3.42 3 .85 1249 < . O O l

than females predicted is significant a t beyond the .01 level for both entering freshmen and advanced students, and a t beyond the .001 level for all students combined. Separate analyses of predictions were made for students in the fall term of data collection, and again in the spring. While these data are combined in Table 1, similar directions of difference were found in each term. The phenomenon reported is not confined to one term of the year. Both sexes predicted very high grades for themselves: 3.52 on a 4.00 scale for males; 3.42 for women. See Table 1.

Since the classes varied greatly in size, chi square was used to determine whether males predicted higher grades in more than 50 percent (the number expected by chance) of the courses in each academic division (natural science, social science, or humanities). Chi square for the social sciences was 4.92 (p < .05), and for the natural sciences 3.27 (p < . lo). Higher male predictions were found in only 8 of 15 courses in humanities, thus closely approximating chance. Neither sex predicted different grades as a function o f the sex of the instructor.

D I SCU SS ION

What we found is a pervasive, low-level effect: the phenomenon reported by Vaughter e t al. (1974) is not restricted to psychology; it occurs even when past academic history is carefully taken into account; and it is not influenced by the sex o f the instructor. The notion that a woman professor, serving as a role model, would raise the level of academic expectations for women students is not sup- ported by our study. I t was not, of course, assumed that in the first five minutes of a class a faculty member could serve in any signifi- cant way as a role model; however, on a small campus such as the

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one studied here, faculty members are generally known or a t least recognized by students before the student enters a class. Whatever prior concepts our subjects may have held o f these faculty members, the sex of the professor was not a significant variable in determining student anticipations of their own academic performance in the course.

The phenomenon o f higher academic expectations for males is much less pronounced in the humanities than it is in the natural or social sciences. According to traditional stereotypes, the humanities are a more feminine area of study. Even there, the absolute direction of difference favors male predictions.

The differences found persist in spite of the data being collected a t a time and place where consciousness of the effects of sex-role socialization seems very salient. But the differences, however statisti- cally significant, are extremely small. The fact i s that both sexes throughout our study predicted very high grades for themselves; in fact, predicted higher grades than they received. These high predic- tions were made even at the start of the spring term, when the high resolve that characterizes the start of a new academic year might be expected to have faded.

As noted, differences in grade predictions between the sexes have been variously ascribed to a female sense of incompetence, female verbal modesty, masculine sense of competence, or masculine ten- dencies toward verbal confidence, Given the high expectations ex- pressed by both sexes in our study, the psychological emphasis seems most appropriately centered on the males. It i s hard to see a female mean prediction of A- as suggesting either incompetence or modesty. The fac t that males, despite academic histories equivalent to those of their female counterparts, persistently predicted slightly higher grades for themselves may support the contention that socialization made it easier for the males to voice confidence or even boast than it was for the women to voice confidence or boast. But neither sex was hesitant to predict a highly competent performance.

REFERENCES

Crandall, V. Expectancy o f reinforcement and academic competence. /ournu/ of Person-

Crandall, V. Sex differences in expectancy of intellectual and academic reinforcement. In C . P. Smith (Ed.), Achievement-related motives in children. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1969.

ality, 1968,36 (4) 635-648.

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French, E. G., & Lesser, G. W. Some characteristics o f the achievement motive in women. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1964,68, 11 9-1 28,

Kagan, J. Acquisition and significance 0s sex-typing and sex-role identity. I n M. L. Hoffman & L. W. Hoffman (Eds.), Review of child development research (Vol. 1). New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1964, 137-165.

Maccoby, E. G., & Jacklin, C. N. Sex differences in intellectual functioning. I n Proceedings of the 1972 invitational conference on testing problems. Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 1973.

Stein, A. H. The effects o f sex-role standards for achievement and sex-role preference on three determinants o f achievement motivation. Developmental Psychology, 1971, 4,

Stein, A. H., & Bailey, M. M. The socialization of achievement orientation in females. Psychological Bulletin, 1973,80, 345-366.

Vaughter, R., Gubernick, D., Matossian, J., Haslett, B., Sex differences in academic expec- tations and achievement. Paper presented a t the meeting o f the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, September 1974.

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