Remember when Barbie whined that “math is hard.” Maybe you got annoyed at hearing a popular female doll say that to little girls. Or maybe you also had a nagging suspicion that, in fact, boys are better at math. Well, the latest research is in, and the answer is a resounding no: boys are not more math savvy. The finding appears in the July 25 issue of the journal Science. 

    Janet Hyde at the University of Wisconsin-Madison led the study. The group dug through piles of information from seven million students tested through the No Child Left Behind program across ten states. Researchers had detailed personal info on the test takers. Researchers checked out math tests in different grades. They took the average. No difference. Some critics have said that the difference only shows up among the highest levels of math skills. So the team checked out the most gifted children. Again, no difference. From any angle, girls measured up to boys. Still, there’s a lack of women in the highest levels of professional math, engineering and physics. Some have said that’s because of an innate difference in math ability. But the new research shows that that explanation just doesn’t add up.

    你一定還記得芭比娃娃曾抱怨“數學很難”。或許你很討厭聽到一個大眾喜愛的玩具女娃娃對小女孩們這樣說。你也可能憤憤不平地懷疑男孩子真就是比女孩子數學好。最新的研究出來了，答案完全是否定的：男孩子在數學上未必比女孩子聰明。這項研究發表在7月25日的《科學》雜志上。

    威斯康星大學麥迪遜分校的珍妮特•海德領導了這項研究。這個研究小組分析了來自十個州多達7百萬學生的信息，這些學生的考試是通過《不讓一個兒童落后》計劃進行的。研究人員掌握參加考試學生的詳細個人信息。他們分析檢驗了不同年級的數學考試成績。結果表明男孩女孩都取得平均成績，并沒有男女差別。有些評論家說男女成績的差別只在最高級別的數學技巧上顯現出來。因此這個研究小組對那些最有天分的兒童們進行了分析檢驗。結果仍然是沒有男女之別。從任何角度講，女孩子和男孩子的數學能力相同。但是，在對數學要求最高的工程和物理職業領域里，女性仍然不多。有些人認為這是由于男女在數學能力方面天生有別。但是這項最新的研究表明這樣的解釋是站不住腳的。