Girls just as good as boys at maths

There's no real difference between the scores of US boys and girls on common math tests, according to a massive new study published in Science. Educators hope the finding will finally dispel lingering perceptions that girls don't measure up to boys when it comes to crunching numbers.

Researchers looked through standardised test scores taken by nearly seven million student in the USA in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Overall, researchers found no gender difference. Among students with the highest test scores, the team did find that white boys outnumbered white girls by about two to one. Among Asians, however, that result was nearly reversed. Hyde says that suggests that cultural and social factors, not gender alone, influence how well students perform on tests.

Another portion of the study did confirm that boys still tend to outscore girls on the mathematics section of the SAT test taken by 1.5 million students interested in attending college. In 2007, for instance, boys' scores were about 7% higher on average than girls'. But researchers argue that the gap is a statistical illusion, created by the fact that more girls take the test.

According to the authors of the report, teachers and parents need to stop thinking that girls are inherently less able at maths than boys, and stop leading them in non-technical career directions as a result.