To Prove or Improve: Gendered Strategies of Self-Appraisal Meet Gender Patterns of Learning in Interactions

• In Event: Does Gender Still Matter in Student Motivation? How, Why, for What, and for Whom?

Abstract

The conceptual framework links gender patterns in motivated self-evaluative strategies to gender patterns in learning during peer interactions. The first objective was to chart the development of tendencies for boys to be more oriented to proving superior ability and defending their competence, and for girls to be to attend to and learn from others and feedback, and avoid social aggrandizement. These patterns are reminiscent of the adversarial versus collaborative styles typical of male versus female interactions (Maccoby, 1998) and the motivational states of task vs. ego involvement (Nicholls, 1984). Thus, the second objective was to examine the counter-intuitive predictions that emphasizing the value of peer discussion for learning (task focus) will benefit boys, more than girls, by moderating male tendencies to promote their ideas at the expense of learning from others, but emphasizing the value of discussion for proving one’s ability (ego focus) will benefit girls, more than boys, by moderating female tendencies to seek consensus at the expense of critically challenging other’s ideas.

Participants in Study 1 were 350 Israeli children (ages 4-6, 7-9, 12-13). I examined self-evaluative strategies by (a) asking how children evaluated their competence in daily life, (b) letting them choose between different kinds of evaluation (normative, progress) after working on cognitive tasks, and (c) examining the effects of different evaluations on performance-appraisal. Study 2 examined the effects of a task vs. ego focus condition on computer-mediated dialogue and learning of a complex scientific topic (evolution) among 45 same-sex dyads of college students. Dialogue was coded for collaborative and critical statements. We tested understanding of evolution before and two weeks after the session.

By age 5-6, more boys spontaneously referred to social comparison (SC) and more girls to objective standards, progress, or adult feedback, but gender did not moderate preferences and self-appraisal in a controlled setting. By ages 8-9, self-appraisals were higher and more positively biased among boys than girls; boys, but not girls showed self-enhancing preferences for downwards vs. upwards SC and selective attention to positive feedback. By ages 12-13, math self-concept moderated information seeking only among boys; high self concept boys requested normative evaluation, low self concept boys preferred to receive no evaluation, and few boys requested progress evaluation. Girls requested progress rather than normative evaluation, but evaluated performance lower than boys after receiving negative normative evaluation.

The results of Study 2 confirmed that relative to a task focus, an ego focus enhanced girls’ critical contributions without undermining collaboration; boys were more collaborative and less critical in the task than the go condition. Thus, in contrast with common wisdom female dyads discussed more productively and learned more in the ego condition, and male dyads in the task condition.

Results clarify the development and costs versus benefits of gendered orientations to “prove or improve”. I shall discuss implications for differences, often favoring boys in academic self-concept, expectancies, and class participation, and for differences favoring girls in school achievement and persistence. Results challenge proposals that girls learn science better in collaborative and boys in competitive contexts.

Author

• Ruth Butler, Hebrew University of Jerusalem