Gender Gap in Performance in Competitive Environments: Evidence from a Real Competition on Spelling

This Master’s thesis examines the gender gap in performance in a real contest. The data from a contest for children on spelling and vocabulary in English, named National Spelling Bee, offers the opportunity to study the gender gap as competition advances. The contest offers a unique opportunity to s...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Ozacit, Tugba
Tipo de recurso: tesis de maestría
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Oviedo (UNIOVI)
Repositorio:RUO. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Oviedo
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:digibuo.uniovi.es:10651/38629
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10651/38629
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Gender Gap
Performance
Real Contest
Language Task
Competitive Pressure
Descripción
Sumario:This Master’s thesis examines the gender gap in performance in a real contest. The data from a contest for children on spelling and vocabulary in English, named National Spelling Bee, offers the opportunity to study the gender gap as competition advances. The contest offers a unique opportunity to study gender differences in a prominent contest on a language task where the contestants compete in multiple eliminatory rounds. Two main findings should be highlighted. In the six editions I study, I do not find evidence for girls and boys showing different likelihood for being among the semifinalists or among the winners. However, there is a gender difference in the dynamics along the multiple rounds in the contest. Boys show, relative to girls, better performance in later rounds compared to earlier rounds. There are also interesting heterogeneous effects regarding the age, school grade and ethnic origin.