Ambition vs. Preparation

Inside Higher Ed had an article yesterday about a survey of student attitudes that they analyze in terms of gender differences, finding that women entering college are generally better prepared than their male counterparts, but men entering college are more confident in their abilities, particularly in math and science. As you might expect, this leads to a bit of discussion in the comments.

One thing I'd like to pull out of the bickering, though, is a "big picture" comment:

Ignore the gender differences for a minute and focus on the big picture. 9 out of 10 students (male & female) EXPRESS great ambition towards obtaining a college degree, yet only half (very roughly) of these same students describe traits that indicate that they actually have a history of making the sacrifices required to obtain a MEANINGFUL education (note: big difference between a degree and an education).

To some degree, those numbers are pulled down by the dismal male performance-- only 57.9 percent of students say they study hard for all courses, even those they dislike, but that comes from 49.8 of men and 64.4 percent of women. It's a good point, though-- as big as the study skills gap between men and women is, the gap between ambition and preparation is bigger, and more troubling. Only 54% of women say that they "get great satisfaction from reading," though, and that's kind of sad, even if it is sixteen points better than the men.

(I'd really like to know how they control for student honesty in this, though-- this would seem to be a situation where social factors would strongly encourage lying in a direction that would inflate the gap (that is, males are somewhat inclined to claim to spend less time studying than they do, and to act confident even when they're not). I don't really want to know enough to read the PDF of the report and see if they explain it, mind, but I'm curious.)