Making the grade but feeling distressed: gender differences in academic performance and internal distress

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Gender

Why do girls suffer more stress than boys but perform better at school?

The researchers' findings were consistent with other theoretical perspectives and research which identified factors that may cause girls to outperform boys, whilst still experiencing more stress.

In this study girls appeared to approach exams as a way of emphasising their capabilities. Consequently, they viewed their exam results and the related feedback as an opportunity to reflect on their performance, which helped them to perform better. The authors suggested that this attitude might have led them to suffer more from mental distress. In contrast, boy's competitive and self-confident manner suggested that they were less concerned about feedback.

Girls were also concerned about pleasing adults (teachers and parents), which might make them want to achieve higher grades. The authors found that girls' need to please left them more vulnerable to mental distress as they saw their failure as a disappointment to authority figures (teachers and adults). By contrast, boys were less concerned about pleasing adults, but were motivated by competition. Their failure in one subject was seen by them to be relevant only to that subject and thus unrelated to other subjects or matters. Boys' indifference to pleasing adults made them less vulnerable to mental distress.

The researchers also looked at the gender research literature and suggested a number of other factors which might have contributed to the difference in stress levels amongst the pupils in their study. These included traditional gender stereotyping, hormonal development and the tendency for boys to dominate the classroom environment in maths and science.

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Research Home Themes \| Find digests \| About the digests resources glossary researchers contact TRIPS Introduction What did the researchers aim to do? What did the research find? Why do girls suffer more stress than boys but perform better at school? How was the research designed? What do the researcher's conclude about how we should respond to children's stress? Implications Where can I find out more? Send us your feedback Collated digests Teaching Children How to Use Language to Solve Maths Problems To view/remove/add notes and save your collated digests click here Get Word Reader Making the grade but feeling distressed: gender differences in academic performance and internal distress This digest found in Gender Send to a friend Word doc 110KB Printer friendly Collate for later Why do girls suffer more stress than boys but perform better at school? The researchers' findings were consistent with other theoretical perspectives and research which identified factors that may cause girls to outperform boys, whilst still experiencing more stress. In this study girls appeared to approach exams as a way of emphasising their capabilities. Consequently, they viewed their exam results and the related feedback as an opportunity to reflect on their performance, which helped them to perform better. The authors suggested that this attitude might have led them to suffer more from mental distress. In contrast, boy's competitive and self-confident manner suggested that they were less concerned about feedback. Girls were also concerned about pleasing adults (teachers and parents), which might make them want to achieve higher grades. The authors found that girls' need to please left them more vulnerable to mental distress as they saw their failure as a disappointment to authority figures (teachers and adults). By contrast, boys were less concerned about pleasing adults, but were motivated by competition. Their failure in one subject was seen by them to be relevant only to that subject and thus unrelated to other subjects or matters. Boys' indifference to pleasing adults made them less vulnerable to mental distress. The researchers also looked at the gender research literature and suggested a number of other factors which might have contributed to the difference in stress levels amongst the pupils in their study. These included traditional gender stereotyping, hormonal development and the tendency for boys to dominate the classroom environment in maths and science.