Gender-Based Differences in
Academic Achievement in a
University Design Program
Philip Crowther
41.4
and Sarah Briant
Abstract
There is a significant amount of research into gender differences in academic performance
in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) fields. This has identified
important differences between the academic achievement of men and women as measured
through grade point averages and time to completion. However, the specific STEM fields of
design have not been thoroughly explored. This research investigates the long-term
academic performance of a large group of architecture, industrial design, interior design and
landscape architecture students at a major Australian university. The study followed the
progress of 472 students over an 11-year period. In most fields the academic achievement
of students follows expected patterns; the difference in academic grades for male and
female students reduces over time. However, in interior design, there are significant
differences that increase with time, to the favour of women. A range of social, cultural and
contextual influences are discussed including the signature pedagogy of the design studio
and the hidden curriculum of design education.
Keywords
academic performance, design, education, STEM
Introduction
Research into the influence of gender on academic performance at university has
resulted in a variety of findings, with many studies showing it is important, whilst
many show no difference. Large bodies of research show that male students
underperform compared with female students (Noble et al. 2007; Barrow
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium,
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DOI: 10.1111/jade.12429
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Ó 2022 The Authors. International Journal of Art & Design Education published by
National Society for Education in Art and Design and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Crowther and Briant
et al. 2009; Thiele et al. 2016), whilst other conflicting research shows that male
students perform better than female students (McMillan-Capehart & AdeyemiBello 2008). There are further examples of research exposing only a small difference between male and female students’ academic performance (Kappe & van der
Flier Kappe & Van Der Flier 2012), and research showing no relationship at all
between gender and academic achievement (DeBerard et al. 2004; De Winter &
Dodou 2011).
There is also significant research into how any gender differences change over
time during the study, though again there are conflicting findings. Some research
shows that whilst men had higher university entrance scores, women developed
higher grade point averages (GPA) (Chee et al. 2005). Whilst other findings show
that large differences in entry level are generally narrowed by the time of graduation (Thiele et al. 2016). Amongst this research there is however a recurring finding that the effect of gender on academic performance is varied; it is often
different depending on the discipline of field of study (Tickell & Smyrnios 2005).
Two reasons for this gender imbalance have been suggested; ‘degree structures
that are more suited to a specific gender or course imbalances in which student
populations are predominantly male or predominantly female’ (Mills et al. 2009,
214).
The idea that degree structures may be more suited to a specific gender has
been widely explored in the science, technology, engineering, and maths fields, the
STEM disciplines, as has the issue of disproportionate male or female student
numbers. This is however primarily in the maths and engineering fields which are
dominated by male students. Other STEM disciplines such as architecture, interior
design, landscape architecture, and industrial design have been largely overlooked
with limited research into the academic achievement of students in general and little exploration of the role of gender in academic achievement (Crowther & Briant
2021).
Habitus
Whilst it is desirable and tempting to think of modern developed society as a meritocratic environment in which anyone can become anything, the reality is not so
optimistic. There are strong cultural and social structures that shape and direct a
person’s actions and achievements and constrain their abilities (Coleman 1988;
Bourdieu 2006). A person’s history and standing within a society can have a significant effect on their social trajectory, including their educational development.
Pierre Bourdieu has proposed an understanding of social structures and interactions that is based on a complex aggregation of three types of capital: ‘economic
capital, which is immediately and directly convertible into money. . . cultural capital,
which. . . may be institutionalised in the form of educational qualifications, and. . .
social capital made up of social obligations’ (2006, 106). These three forms of capital work together, and can be converted one to the others, to affect and influence
a person’s achievements within society, including their educational achievements.
This capital works to establish and maintain social class structures and inequities,
including within the education systems. Bourdieu proposes that formal education
systems do not offer equal opportunity to all, but rather that they work to maintain the status quo of inequality (Bourdieu 2006).
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632
Crowther and Briant
Curriculum/Pedagogy
A student’s academic performance may be linked to their social identity. Gender
differences in academic performance vary with the subject or discipline of study,
for example, men may perform better in mathematics whilst women may perform
better in biology (Richardson & Woodley 2003). Each subject, or discipline, has its
own profile of how gender and other social variables interact to affect academic
performance. For example, ‘research has found that there are instructional methods, learning styles, and interests that can be characterized as distinctly female’
(Weber & Custer 2005, 56). Any differences in the academic achievement
between male and female students may be dependent on the discipline or field of
study (Smith 2016).
Stereotypes can constitute powerful social pressures to behave in certain
ways, ‘indeed, the culture and atmosphere at all levels within an institute will to
some extent flow from the sorts of beliefs, values and norms possessed by individuals within that institute’ (Leman 1999, 250). Such stereotypes can be found in
gender-biased visuals, language, teaching approaches and academic staff attitudes
(Kerkhoven et al. 2016). Indeed, there can be strong contradictions between academic staff’s championing of gender issues in education and their acceptance of
responsibility to implement change in their own practices, particularly with reference to curriculum development (Hinton-Smith et al. 2021).
STEM Education
One area where curriculum and pedagogical approaches have come under strong
scrutiny in the past few decades is science, technology, engineering, and maths
(STEM). These fields of education have historically been characterised by masculine
gender coding (Wajngurt & Sloan 2019; Hussenius 2020), and much attention has
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National Society for Education in Art and Design and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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633
Such inequality is often evident in gender disparity and stereotypes, where
family, school, and society impose attitudes and beliefs (Hubbard 2005). ‘Many children feel obliged by their parents and peers to behave in ways that are consistent
with traditional gender roles of their culture’ (Schroeder & Liben 2021, 125). This
concept of self-stereotyping results in the internalisation of other people’s gender
perspectives, which may limit someone’s gender-related identity to traditional
social roles; such a process occurs through role models and is situational (Meier &
Diefenbach 2020).
Inequity and disadvantage are socially constructed, not biologically determined;
it is those in power that select specific kinds of knowledge, such as essential learnings, that are in the interest of those privileged few (Brady & Kennedy 2013).
These essential learnings can ‘socialise learners into certain ways of seeing the
world’ (Smith & Lovat 2003, 12). ‘Schools generally value and reward those who
exhibit that dominant cultural capital (which is also usually exhibited by the teachers)’ (McLaren 2002, 81). Within this environment, students must learn to play the
role of college or university student in order to understand the instructor’s expectations and apply such understanding to achieve academic success (Collier &
Morgan 2008). How well a student can role play is based on their habitus background which affects ability and performance.
Crowther and Briant
been applied recently to address this issue. The underrepresentation of women in
STEM education is well documented, both as students and as academics (Shekhar
& Devi 2012; Makarova et al. 2019; Sattari & Sandefur 2019; Cavaglia
et al. 2020). Historically, young women do not choose to study engineering as
much as men, because they consider a typical engineer as masculine. The idea of a
hidden gender curriculum in engineering education is well explored (Tonso 2002)
and issues of belonging and participation are clearly important and clearly have
been historically lacking in the female experience (Wood 2002). These ‘gendered
perceptions about the appropriateness of maths and science careers as being
acceptable paths for women to pursue shape how women make decisions’ for what
they choose to study (Kelley & Bryan 2018, 23).
Research by Sadker and Sadker identifies a hidden curriculum of exclusion,
intimidation, isolation, and condescending behaviour ‘so elusive that most teachers
and students were almost completely unaware of its influence’ (Vogt et al. 2007,
340). They note that the traditional engineering education environment, often seen
as a male-normed classroom, intermingled with a woman’s self-perception, will have
a significant impact on her ability to succeed in her pursuit of engineering. The lack
of suitable role models in academia, in practice, and in media, has been identified
as a possible cause for the continuing male-dominated culture of engineering; and
in academia, the issue of role models is not just about the lack of women, but also
the lack of women at senior levels (Wasburn 2007).
Whilst there is evidently significant interest in addressing the recent issues in
engineering education, and to a lesser extent maths and science, there is little
focus on other disciplines in the STEM domain. In particular, design education (architecture, industrial design, interior design and landscape architecture) has not
attracted the same level of scrutiny over gender parity. A review of the literature
in this area suggests that whilst there are certainly pedagogical issues that need to
be addressed, these are not gender-based; however, there is little empirical
research to support a view either way.
Design Education
The field of design has been largely overlooked with little research into academic
achievement and gender or academic achievement in general in the design fields;
indeed, the research on gender differences and academic achievement in creative
fields was scarce two decades ago (Ai 1999) and has not developed far since then
(Crowther & Briant 2021). Whilst there is limited research into the influence of gender on the academic achievement of design students, there are numerous studies in
the more general field of creativity and gender (Naderi et al. 2010). These are however often conflicting or inconclusive in their findings with some showing that girls
and women score higher in creativity tests, whilst others show the opposite, and
many show no significant difference (Baer & Kaufham Baer & Kaufman 2008). One
interpretation of these differing results is that males and females do well in different
aspects of creative practice, especially in an educational context, but that these differences may possibly be due to gender identity (Naderi et al. 2010). Further to this,
it has been shown that any such gender-based differences in spatial cognition, diminish as students progress through the education system (Kaya 2021).
In a more nuanced study of how students actually apply creative thinking
there were no gender-based differences, nor were there any differences more
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Crowther and Briant
Design Studios
The design studio seeks to recreate the working studio environment of traditional
design practice. It is an environment in which students work on individual or group
design projects whilst academic staff move from student to student offering guidance and feedback on work in progress, using drawing and computer simulations
to illustrate ideas and approaches. Much of the activity of the studio is centred on
the dialogue between student and teacher. This attempts to replicate, in many
aspects, the activities and interpersonal relationships of professional practice. As
there are clear hierarchies of power in the workplace, so too are there hierarchies
in the educational setting. This privileged position and hierarchical social relationship between teacher and student also carry with it a strong aspect of socialisation
and acculturation (Nicol & Pilling 2000). There is a ‘hidden curriculum [of] unstated
values, attitudes, and norms which stem tacitly from the social relations’ (Dutton 1987, 16). This hidden curriculum is an important part of the ‘institutionalized
state of capital’ of which Bourdieu (1986) speaks.
In design education, the hidden curriculum is most evident in the studio or atelier which is still the dominant mode of student engagement; it is the signature
pedagogy of design (Schulman Shulman 2005). This learning mode has, however,
been questioned as an appropriately supportive and equitable environment and in
light of cultural changes in society in general, and the professions specifically, there
is a need to review and amend some practices. In particular, the power games of
the hidden curriculum have come under scrutiny (Stevens 1998; Webster 2006)
with gender-related issues being a significant factor in how students behave and
perform.
Despite these gender issues, research has shown no significant difference in
how male and female design students approach learning spatial design (Demirbas
& Demirkan 2007). Across a number of spatial design fields there has been shown
to be no significant difference between male and female students in terms of their
learning styles (Demirkan & Demirbas Demirkan & Demirbasß 2010), their preferences in terms of design characteristics of landscape architecture environments
€r & Akyu
€ngo
€z 2020), or their attitudes to industrial design
(Gungor & Akyuz Gu
(Stilma et al. 2005). If this is the case, again, we may conclude that any difference
in academic performance is related to contextual issues of the learning environment, including staff, spaces, resources, and curriculum.
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635
broadly in divergent thinking ability (Potur & Barkul 2009). In this study of the
self-perception of creativity, there were significant differences between men and
women based on the discipline; men reported higher creativity in fields such as
physics and other stereotypically male fields, whilst women reported higher creativity in fields such as communication, interior design and other stereotypically
female fields. Despite these self-perceptions, empirical study shows there to be no
significant difference in the creative thinking ability of men and women; ‘gender is
evidently not an important determinant of divergent thinking’ (Potur &
Barkul 2009, 52). This is important in so far as it suggests that any significant
gender-based differences in academic achievement may be due to other cultural,
social, and contextual issues; external factors such as the learning environment. In
the case of design education, this environment is the design studio and the associated pedagogical approaches and interpersonal relationships
Crowther and Briant
Academic Success
Issues of academic success, what it is, how it is measured, and what it means, are
contentious. Within a higher education context, there is no consistent definition of
academic success; it has been measured variously by overall grade point average
(GPA), first-year GPA, time to graduation, persistence and retention, credits completed, graduate employment, and transfer rates from college to university (Allen
et al. 2017; Goegan & Daniels 2019). Despite the diversity of quantitative and
qualitative measures, the vast majority of studies have defined academic success in
terms of GPA, first-year GPA, and retention from first year to second year (Shivpuri et al. 2006; Parsons 2016). For the purposes of the research presented here,
academic success has been measured by overall program GPA, first-year GPA,
retention to the second year, and by time to graduation as this has been a significant focus of a recent major Australian Government study (Higher Education Standards Panel 2018) and had been identified as a problematic issue for the design
program presented here. With these measures in mind, this study has investigated
the ongoing academic achievement of a cohort of university design students at a
major Australian university. The academic performance of these students was collected over an 11-year period to allow as complete a picture as possible of the
students’ academic journey from commencement to graduation.
Methods
Research Questions
This research seeks to establish if there are significant differences in the academic
achievement of male and female design students. The research asks:
• What is the correlation between gender and grade point average (GPA) in university design education?
• What is the correlation between gender and first-year grade point average
(GPA) in university design education?
• What is the correlation between gender and time to graduation in university
design education?
Participants
This study investigates the academic history of 472 undergraduate students in a
four-year-long (eight semesters) Bachelor of Design programme within a Faculty of
Built Environment and Engineering. Ethics approval was granted by the Faculty
Ethics Committee for the collection of this research data. This cohort of students
all commenced in the same year and was fairly evenly distributed across the four
professional disciplines of architecture (n = 169), industrial design (n = 109), interior design (n = 102) and landscape architecture (n = 92). The academic achievements of this group were investigated over the following 11 years. During that
time many graduated in the prescribed 4 years, though many also took significantly
longer due to failed subjects or leave of absence. As such, the long duration of this
study has allowed a more comprehensive picture of academic progress and
achievement, in particular, time to graduation.
Of the cohort approximately 41 per cent were direct school leavers; the
remainder being students who had taken a gap year, mature-aged students and
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Ó 2022 The Authors. International Journal of Art & Design Education published by
National Society for Education in Art and Design and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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Measures
Academic achievement, as previously discussed, was defined as overall grade point
average (GPA), first-year GPA, and time to completion/graduation. GPA is measured on a 7-point scale with 1 to 3 being failing grades and 4 to 7 being passing
grades. For this cohort, the mean GPA on completion was 5.12 with a standard
deviation of 0.57. The mean time to completion was 9.35 semesters with a standard deviation of 1.78 semesters. There was also an opportunity to assess retention from the first year to second year since this had been a matter of concern for
the university. Overall retention for this cohort was 76.8%.
Data Analysis
Analysis of the data was conducted to ascertain if there was any statistically significant difference between the academic achievements of female students and male
students. This analysis was conducted separately on each of the four discipline
groups. A series of t-tests were conducted on the data to compare the two groups
(unless noted otherwise, all tests were two-tailed and assumed unequal variance).
A significance level of probability p < 0.05 was adopted, as is generally appropriate
for psychological statistics. Results from this analysis are presented in Table 1. To
analyse the rates of retention a series of Z-tests were conducted to compare the
percentages of female and male students who were retained into the second year.
Findings
At a whole cohort level, the mean GPA for female students was 5.23 and for male
students was 5.09 however this was not statistically significant for the number of
students in the sample. Indeed, it is only when the students are analysed by discipline that a significant picture of difference emerges.
In architecture there is a statistically significant difference in first-year GPAs,
favouring female students. This, however, disappears as students progress through
the programme, and there is only a small, but not significant, the difference in GPA
at graduation. There is a small but not significant difference in time to graduation,
again favouring female students.
The same is the case in industrial design for first-year GPA. This difference
similarly changes by graduation, though in this case, the small, not statistically significant, difference favours male students at graduation. There is a small but not
significant difference in time to graduation, again favouring male students.
In landscape architecture female students do perform slightly better than male
students, though this is not statistically significant, and there is a small but not significant difference in time to graduation, favouring male students.
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637
older international students. The average age at the time of enrolment was
19.4 years (standard deviation = 2.6 years) and 47% of the cohort identified as
female. The four programs studied here have quite a high university entry score
requirements, typically requiring the student to be in the top 35% of students who
receive an entrance score. Previous research (Crowther & Briant 2021) has identified a significant correlation between university entry scores and academic
achievement for this cohort; but it is important to note, for the purposes of this
research, that there was no statistically significant difference between entry scores
of female and male students.
Crowther and Briant
TABLE 1
Results from independent t-tests for gender
Female
Mean
Male
SD
Mean
t-value
p-value
SD
Architecture
Grade point average (GPA)
5.24
0.58
5.09
0.57
1.57
0.111
First-year GPA*
4.91
0.89
4.64
0.90
2.41
0.045
Time to graduation
8.96
1.19
9.37
1.90
1.33
0.053
Grade point average (GPA)
4.98
0.49
5.19
0.58
1.41
0.087
First-year GPA*
4.79
0.79
4.19
1.20
2.64
0.014
Time to graduation
9.79
2.24
9.21
1.75
1.28
0.165
Grade point average (GPA) **
5.27
0.55
4.79
0.33
3.83
0.003
First Year GPA
5.09
0.70
5.00
0.48
0.60
0.233
Time to graduation
8.59
1.37
9.49
2.50
0.94
0.161
Grade point average (GPA)
5.01
0.58
4.77
0.43
1.68
0.068
First Year GPA
4.39
0.79
3.81
1.17
2.84
0.061
Time to graduation
10.99
1.83
9.67
2.03
1.94
0.183
Industrial Design
Interior Design
Landscape Architecture
*significant at p < 0.05.
**significant at p < 0.01.
It is in interior design where we see some notable differences and an unusual
pattern of academic development during programme progression. Whilst there is
no significant difference in first-year GPA, there is a highly significant difference in
GPA at graduation, favouring female students by almost half a point. There is a
small but not significant difference in time to graduation, favouring female students. Of particular interest is the fact that the difference between female and
male students increases during the programme rather than decreases as would
normally be expected (Thiele et al. 2016), as is the case in the other three fields
studies here.
Retention from the first year to the second year was 71% for female students
and 68% for male students. Overall Z value = 0.795, p = 0.211 as such not statistically significant. Similar values were achieved within each of the four discipline
groups, none being statistically significant.
Discussion
Of most interest in these findings is the disparity between male and female students in interior design. Whilst most design students moved towards parity as they
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Acknowledgement
Open access publishing facilitated by Queensland University of Technology, as part of the
Wiley - Queensland University of Technology agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.
Philip Crowther, Philip is the Academic Lead Learning and Teaching in the School of Architecture and Built Environment at the Queensland University of Technology. He has twentyone years of academic experience and has taught in all years of the architecture program,
with specialist experience in first-year of transition to university. Philip is a multiple teaching
award winner and recipient of a National ALTC citation. He has published widely on aspects
of design education, exploring the signature pedagogy of the design studio.
Sarah Briant, Sarah is the postgraduate architecture program Coordinator at the Queensland
University of Technology, where she has taught design students for over 20 years. She teaches
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639
progressed through the program, interior design students increased disparity
between male and female students. Investigation of the specific context here
reveals all the issues identified in engineering education but of the inverse gender
profile. There are more female than male students, fewer male role models (only
one staff member was male when the study was conducted), and there is a strong
societal bias towards interior design being a female profession. As previously
noted, two potential reasons for gender differences in design fields are a lack of a
supportive or conducive environment and the stereotypical expectations of society
(Baer & Kaufman 2008). ‘Traditional gender roles have placed enormous obstacles
in defining interests related to creative areas’ (Potur & Barkul 2009, 48) and
gender-related differences in creative ability may be determined, in part, by students’ alignment with different gender roles and stereotypes (Ai 1999). In design
education, we have seen, that the cultural and social environments of the design
studio and the design critique offer a great opportunity for the development of
stereotypes and role models, and the development of a hidden curriculum, in this
case, a hidden gendered curriculum.
Whilst it appears that in the cases of architecture, industrial design, and landscape architecture that the curriculum and the learning environment are appropriately providing equal opportunity for all genders, this seems not to be the case for
interior design. Indeed, the fact that the disparity increases suggests serious issues
with the learning environment. Strategies employed in engineering education to
counter gender bias could be implemented in this case. The following issues could
be reviewed; student gender balance, male academic role models, gender representation in resources, student and staff behaviour in the design studio, and generally making the gender issues more explicit to students. Indeed, because gender is
culturally constructed, gender issues could be included in design projects that students engage with (Gillanders & Franco Vazquez 2020).
This review of just one case of design education has highlighted some issues
in a relatively unexplored part of STEM education. It does however suggest further
exploration is required. It must be noted that this study involves a small nonrepresentative sample in one specific context. The results of this study can however assist in developing a general hypothesis, but care should be taken in generalising the findings.
Crowther and Briant
across design, technology and professional practice subject areas and is interested in the
development of programs enhancing employability skills for graduates. She has extensive experience in work integrated learning (WIL) in the design and creative industries fields and is
interested in the long-term development of students becoming professional designers.
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