Bd. Nelson et al., Underprediction of female performance from standardized knowledge tests: Afurther example from the knowledge of geography test, SEX ROLES, 41(7-8), 1999, pp. 529-540
It has been documented that some tests of background knowledge underpredict
the performance of female students in college. This study explored whether
the underprediction phenomenon would also be found for a test that tapped
four subfields of geography. Students (primarily White, N = 315) enrolled i
n nine geography classes at a comprehensive, midwestern university complete
d the Knowledge of Geography (KOG) test during the first week of the semest
er and consented to release their first exam grades, final grades, and ACT
scores. Replicating a previous study (Henrie, Aron, Nelson, & Poole, 1997),
there were gender differences favoring males across all four subfields of
the KOG test. KOG rest scores correlated with grades, but males and females
achieved comparable course grades despite the lower performance of females
on the KOG test. Examples illustrate how small differences between predict
ed and actual grades can translate into large gender discrepancies whenever
minimum scores from tests that underpredict the performance of a subgroup
are used to qualify students for educational opportunities.