Gender Gap and Multiple Choice Exams in Public Selection Processes

• J. IGNACIO CONDE-RUIZ ^[1] ; JUAN JOSÉ GANUZA ^[2] ; MANUEL GARCÍA ^{[1] [3]}
  1. [1] Universidad Complutense de Madrid

     Universidad Complutense de Madrid

     Madrid, España

     
  2. [2] Universitat Pompeu Fabra

     Universitat Pompeu Fabra

     Barcelona, España

     
  3. [3] Washington University in St. Louis

     Washington University in St. Louis

     Estados Unidos

     

  Mostrar afiliaciones +
• Localización: Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, ISSN 0210-1173, Nº 235, 2020 (Ejemplar dedicado a: On gender perspectives in public economics), págs. 11-28
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
• Resumen

  • Multiple choice tests are commonly used by the public sector in their recruitment and selection procedures as well as in the regulation of entry for some professions (lawyers, physicians, etc.). Empirical and experimental literature has found evidence that females skip more questions on these tests undermining their performance. This bias could increase the gender gap in the public sector, and it can be an important caveat of the public recruitment policies for attracting talent. Using data of the Spanish “MIR (Médico Interno Residente)” national exam of 2019, we analyze if gender differences in behavior arise in high-stakes tests, in which the outcome of the test has long term impact on the test takers careers.

    We find that when a female prepares intensively and trains for the test, although she skips more questions than men, the effect is significantly smaller than in the previous literature. However, we still find small differences in the exam performance between men and female, and this gender gap in performance is greater for the best candidates

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Akyol, S. P., Key, J. and Krishna, K. (2016), “Hit or Miss? Test Taking Behavior in Multiple Choice Exam”, NBER Working Paper 22401.
  • Anderson, J. (1989), “Sex-related Differences on Objective Tests among Undergraduates”, Educational Studies in Mathematics, 20: 165-177.
  • Bagues, M. and Campa, P. (2018), “Can Gender Quotas in Candidate Lists Empower Women? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design”, CEPR...
  • Baldiga, K. (2014), “Gender Differences in Willingness to Guess”, Management Science, 60(2): 434-448.
  • Ben-Shakhar, G. and Sinai, Y. (1991), “Gender differences in multiple-choice tests: The role of differential guessing tendencies”, Journal...
  • Beneito, P., Boscá, J. E., Ferri, J. and García, M. (2018), “Women across Subfields in Economics: Relative Performance and Beliefs”, Working...
  • Buser, T., Niederle, M. and Oosterbeek, H. (2014), “Gender, Competitiveness and Career Choices”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(3):...
  • Coffman, K. B. and Klinowski, D. (2019), “The Impact of Penalties for Wrong Answers on the Gender Gap in Test Scores”, Harvard Business School...
  • Espinosa, M. P. and Gardeazabal, J. (2013), “Do Students Behave Rationally in Multiple Choice Tests? Evidence from a Field Experiment”, Journal...
  • Funk, P. and Perrone, H. (2016), “Gender Differences in Academic Performance: The Role of Negative Marking in Multiple-Choice Exams”, Working...
  • García-Estañ (2018), “Studying Medicine and being a doctor in Spain” AMEE MedEdPublish, Version 1 (7 December 2018), www.mededpublish.org.
  • Gneezy, U., Niederle, M. and Rustichini, A. (2003), “Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences”, The Quarterly Journal of...
  • Iriberri, N. and Rey-Biel, P. (2019), “Competitive pressure widens the gender gap in performance: Evidence from a two-stage competition in...
  • Iriberri, N. and Rey-Biel, P. (2019b), “Brave Boys and Play-it-Safe Girls: Gender Differences in Willingness to Guess in a Large Scale Natural...
  • Jurajda, S. and Münich, D. (2011), “Gender Gap in Performance under Competitive Pressure: Admissions to Czech Universities”, American Economic...
  • Örs, E., Palomino, F. and Peyrache, E. (2013), “Performance Gender Gap: Does Competition Matter?”, Journal of Labor Economics, 31(3): 443-499.
  • Pekkarinen, T. (2015), “Gender differences in behaviour under competitive pressure: Evidence on omission patterns in university entrance examinations”,...
  • Ramos, I. and Lambating, J. (1996), “Gender Difference in Risk-Taking Behavior and their Relationship to SAT-Mathematics Performance”, School...
  • Swineford, F. (1941), “Analysis of a Personality Trait”, Journal of Educational Psychology, 45: 81-90.
  • Tang, C., Ross K., Saxena, N. and Chen, R. (2011), “What’s in a name: a study of names, gender inference, and gender behavior in facebook”,...
  • Tannenbaum, D. (2012), “Do Gender Differences in Risk Aversion Explain the Gender Gap in SAT Scores? Uncovering Risk Attitudes and the Test...