A Gender Gap Analysis on Academic Performance in Engineering Students on Admission and Exit Standardized Tests

Abstract

This paper describes a gender-based research work on academic performance in engineering students. This study is based on the results of 9 469 students from Universidad Nacional de Colombia in the college`s Admission and exit standard tests (the latter known as Saber Pro Tests). Tools such as descriptive statistics, regression analysis, and data mining are used to estimate both gaps and leaps in scores per gender. These tools are not only used to estimate said gaps, but also to determine whether these gaps are broadened or closed throughout the university education process. The results show that there are still gender gaps in favor of men in the area of mathematics, even in STEM programs. On the contrary, a gap in favor of women is noted in the area of writing, although a decline is also observed in reading comprehension skills for both genders. On the other hand, in terms of the global scores, women improve more than men as a result of their undergraduate experience. Finally, purely disciplinary competencies exhibit a notorious gender gap in favor of men, which should lead to future reforms in this type of programs.