The Difference of Self Academic Expectations Between Males and Females

Studies of high school students have found girls score higher on study habits and motivation scales (Godwyns-Agbude, 2026). Other studies have found that women prefer English and Language Arts and men favor Science (Lupart et al., 2004). Family dynamics, gender roles, and values for children also correlate in interesting ways. Specifically, mothers’ benevolent sexism was positively correlated to their want to transmit self-preservation values in both their sons and daughters, while fathers’ benevolent sexism was positively correlated to helping others' values. Furthermore, fathers’ want for this value was stronger for their sons than for their daughters. That said this was only looked at in Italian families (Barni et al., 2022). Most of the studies that have been done look into past accomplishments of men and women, not what they expect from themselves. Also, most of the sample populations were from specific cultures or areas. Therefore, it is important to conduct research in new samples on student expectations for study habits and socialization. Eighty-three participants (mean age = 19.05; 65 females; 42 freshman) contributed data to this investigation. Participants reported their sex, their current GPA, their expected GPA, and the number of hours they expected to study in the coming semester. Men and Women did not differ in their current GPA [t(78) = -0.7468; p = .457] or in the number of hours they expected to spend studying [t(81) = -1.498; p = 0.138]; but women expected a higher GPA at the end of the current semester [t(79) = -2.086; p = .040]. This is surprising, because many previous studies found the opposite. Namely, they found that women expected a lower GPA compared to men. Implications and future directions will be discussed in more detail during the presentation.