Girls Are Scoring Higher In All Subjects, Including STEM, On Average

Female students are out-performing male students in all subjects, on average.

A worldwide study published in Nature Communications has shown that, on average, female students are out-performing male students in all subjects, including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

The study of more than 1.6 million students, conducted by researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Australian National University (ANU), found that while females were getting better marks on average, there was more variability in the marks of boys. This means there are more boys at the bottom and top of the mark spectrum, which the study suggests might contribute to the higher percentage of males in STEM careers later on.

Despite this, the research also found the top 10 per cent of students in STEM subjects contained an equal number of boys and girls; it begins to skew more towards girls in non-STEM subjects.

Lead researcher, Rose O'Dea, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the biggest discrepancy in grades wasn't in STEM, as has been previously believed, but in languages.

"The biggest gender difference was in languages. As with everything, it's probably a bit of both [nature and nurture]," she said.

O'Dea later explained that this might be due to the fact that parents are more likely to read to their daughters rather than their sons.

"STEM subjects carry more baggage, they're considered harder and girls have to fight the stereotype that boys are better at those subjects," O'Dea explained, adding that girls who study both STEM and non-STEM subjects are still more likely to study non-STEM degrees in the future.