Gender Difference in Verbal Performance: In written tests, only 39pct of boys but 61pct of girls will reach proficiency

Gender Difference in Verbal Performance: a Meta-analysis of United States State Performance Assessments. Jennifer Petersen. Educational Psychology Review, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-018-9450-x

Abstract: A comprehensive, statistical review of gender differences in verbal performance has not been conducted in several decades and the majority of previous work on this topic used published studies that often include small, non-representative samples. The introduction of national legislation in US public schools required schools to assess and publicly report verbal performance, thus providing verbal assessment data for millions of American students. The current study presents a meta-analysis of gender differences in US state verbal assessments. Data were collected from the departments of education in 16 states representing more than 10 million US students in grades 3 through 11. Results indicated a small gender difference favoring females for overall verbal performance (d = 0.29). However, when type of assessment was considered, the female advantages in reading (d = 0.19) and language arts (d = 0.29) were smaller than in writing performance (d = 0.45). The small gender differences in verbal performance increased in a linear pattern from grades 3 to 8 and then remained steady in high school.