OSC Scientific Seminar 2020-2021

Friday, 23rd April 2021, 11:30 am / 1 pm (Zoom video conference)

Test participation or test performance:
Why do men benefit from test-based admissions to higher education?

Heike Solga & Claudia Finger

WZB (Berlin Social Science Center), Skill Formation and Labor Markets

This study illuminates the male advantage in test-based admissions to higher education by examining whether this advantage is due to gender differences in test performance or, rarely studied, female avoidance of test situations (i.e., gender differences in test participation).

We use register data for the whole population of more than 300,000 applicants to highly selective and prestigious medical programs in Germany. In contrast to many other countries, admission tests in Germany are optional. This fact offers the unique opportunity to disentangle the two mechanism of test performance versus test participation on gender differences in admission chances.

Our study reveals that men demonstrate better test performance and female applicants are more likely to withdraw from admission tests, however depending on their high school grade point average (GPA): the male advantage in test performance emerges only among test takers with lower GPA and female applicants’ test avoidance only among female applicants with medium GPA. Together, both mechanisms generate a male advantage in test-based admissions (ceteris paribus of GPA), with better test performance being the major source for male applicants’ higher admission chances. As the final outcome, we observe that this male advantage in testing is somewhat neutralized by on average higher GPA of female candidates.

Registration is mandatory to join the ZOOM meeting (the link will be sent one day before).

More information

• Prof. Dr. Heike Solga, Director, Skill Formation and Labor Markets (WZB) & Professor for Sociology, Institute of Sociology, Freie Universitaet Berlin
• Dr. Claudia Finger, Research Fellow of the Research Unit, Skill Formation and Labor Markets (WZB)