The gender gap - teachers page

Secondary activity

The gender gap

Curriculum links

Mathematics: Statistics strand – level 3

• plan a statistical investigation of an assertion about a situation
• collect and display discrete numeric data in stem-and-leaf graphs, dot plots, and strip graphs, as appropriate.

Mathematics: Statistics strand – level 4

• plan a statistical investigation arising from the consideration of an issue or an experiment of interest.

Background

The activity The gender gap comes from a newspaper report that says that more  women have degrees now than men. Students investigate the problem using the SURF for Schools dataset.

There are various ways of approaching this problem. A brainstorm with the whole class may be a useful way of starting the groups off. Some things that may need thought are:

• People under 20 are probably still studying and so might need to be left out.
• What qualifications would you use – degrees against none? None plus school against vocational plus degree?
• If this is a recent change then we could investigate by grouping by age and seeing if anything changes, or by taking two different age groups and comparing them.

These decisions will help identify which records of the dataset should be used.

It is important to take a random sample (a discussion of why it would be a bad idea to choose from the dataset would be useful). The dataset is in random order so this can be done easily by taking (for example) the last 10 males, or every third person.

This is a very small sample of the population. Students should be encouraged to focus their answers on what this data shows. They should be encouraged to avoid sweeping generalisations about the whole population.

There are not really any right or wrong answers and groups can take different actions. The emphasis needs to be on the justification.

The sample answer below shows one way of answering the question and the sort of comments that are expected for justification. It is not the only, or necessarily the best, way of doing the activity.

The problem-plan-data-analysis-conclusion (PPDAC) structure used in the activity fits with the draft new curriculum. Information on PPDAC can be found at the CensusAtSchool website:

www.censusatschool.org.nz/resources/how-kids-learn/

Sample answer

Problem

Do more females have higher qualifications than males? Is this different from how it was in the past?

Plan 

1. We will look at two age groups: 23 to 28 years and 40 to 45 years. This is to see if the pattern is different over time.
2. We will choose 15 people in each age group by taking the first 15 records those between 23 and 28 years, and then the next 15 for those aged between 40 and 45 years. This will give a random sample of the people in these age groups.
3. We will compare numbers for those having low qualifications (none, school or vocational qualifications) with those having high qualifications (degree). We will look at each age group and gender and draw composite bar graphs.
   

Frequency table

Frequency table   

The graph shows that in the younger age group a higher percentage of females have degrees when compared with males. In the older age group a lower percentage of females than males have a degree. In both age groups a higher percentage of males have vocational, school or no qualifications.

The results seem to support the idea that younger females now have higher qualifications than younger males in this dataset. But looking at the other age group, which would be when our parents were young, it seems to be the other way round – more males than females had degrees. This supports the idea of a change over time.