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  • 2016
  • Working Paper

Experimental Evidence on Policies Aimed at Closing the Gender Gap in Willingness to Guess on Multiple-Choice Tests

By: Katherine Baldiga Coffman
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
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Abstract

Research has shown that women skip more questions than men on multiple-choice tests with penalties for wrong answers. We propose and test five policy changes aimed at eliminating this source of gender bias in test scores. Our data show that simply removing the penalty for wrong answers reduces the number of questions skipped by test-takers; however, in this treatment, women still skip more questions than men. We identify two other effective interventions, both of which maintain the standard scoring structure of multiple-choice tests (penalties for wrong answers), reduce the number of questions skipped by test-takers, and eliminate the gender gap.

Keywords

Competition; Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions; Gender

Citation

Coffman, Katherine Baldiga. "Experimental Evidence on Policies Aimed at Closing the Gender Gap in Willingness to Guess on Multiple-Choice Tests." Working Paper, August 2016.

About The Author

Katherine B. Coffman

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

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More from the Author
  • Inclusive Innovation at Mass General Brigham By: Katherine Coffman and Olivia Hull
  • A (Dynamic) Investigation of Stereotypes, Belief-Updating, and Behavior By: Katherine B. Coffman, Paola Ugalde Araya and Basit Zafar
  • Unconscious Bias Training That Works By: Francesca Gino and Katherine Coffman
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