Education concepts and contemporary applications

Education

Gender Effect' in College Learning:" a Critque

In his article, "A gender effect' in college learning," Mark Clayton summarizes a recent study that suggests women learn less during their undergraduate college experience then do men. The study, which considered 19,000 students at 56 four-year colleges and universities in 13 states, has been received rather poorly, despite its recent publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of Higher Education. According to those that Clayton quotes in his Christian Science Monitor introduction to the study, design problems with the study could account for many of the differences. Among the critiques were that the tests used to evaluate the students were gender biased, women take fewer science and math courses, so the test is not representative of what women really know, and that college courses are still structured in a patriarchal way that eliminates the way women learn and think.

Like Valdrie Walker, a professor of education at Sweet Briar College who questioned the study because she did not know its variables, the test could easily be invalidated because of gender bias. First, the questions asked on the test may be stated in a fashion that is more suited to men than women. Furthermore, Clayton's article states that women are more in-tune with a type of learning that allows them to solve problems while working together in groups. These tests may only test the ability of different students to come up with hard and fast answers to multiple choice, or other objective questions. In this case, women aren't given the chance to share their knowledge and the abilities that they have achieved by their college education, such as problem solving and working together with others. When applied to the "real world" one might even suggest that the ways in which women learn are more likely to be used realistically than the way in which men learn. Thus, this test can be questioned. Does it really measure knowledge, or just the way that college education tends to present evaluations, and does this suggest that while women perform poorly on academic evaluations, they perform well on applicability tests.

Questions

In what ways does technology advance or hinder the learning of students of different socioeconomic backgrounds? Are students of a higher socioeconomic background helped by technology in education because they are familiar with the technology? Likewise, are those of a lower socioeconomic background hindered?

How does the classroom of students with wide age gaps compare to the classroom of students with relatively low age gaps?