How Do Interest In Sciences Vary With Gender?

decreasing during the last two decades (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2006). In India too, students ’ interest in science was found to decline as they climb educational ladder from middle school classes to tertiary level. In Kerala, successive examination results have revealed that while girls perform better in Board exams at secondary and higher secondary level, boys top the medical and engineering admission entrance ranks. Elsewhere it is observed that, although girls generally do as well as or better than boys on homework, assignments and course grades in science classes, boys tend to outscore girls when tested on the same content in high-pressure situations such as standardized tests with time limits (Shettle, et al. 2007). These tests are typically not linked to instructed curriculum, and so can be understood to be measures of more general abilities in science (Halpern et al. 2007). But, as SAT scores under-predict young women’s performance in college courses (Wainer, 1992) it is suggested that it is not ability, per se, but consistent gender differences in children’s and adolescents ’ beliefs about their abilities in science, their interest in science, and their perceptions of the importance of science for their futures that hinders girls and women from pursuing careers in scienc