Gender and Other Factors Influencing the Outcome of a Test to Assess Quality of Education in Civil Engineering in Colombia

Abstract

Increasing diversity is a desirable educational and social goal; therefore, reducing large disparities among students is a critical aspect in civil engineering schools. This paper analyzes the presence of gender, socioeconomic, and institutional disparities based on the outcome of two national standard tests in Colombia: SABER-PRO, a national test that assesses the quality of education in civil engineering programs and SABER-11, a test applied to senior high school students. The results suggest that there are no significant gender differences in topics evaluated by SABER-11, except for physics (favoring males) and verbal skill (favoring females). However, according to SABER-PRO test scores, in all topics under evaluation, men perform better than women, except verbally. This may mean that, in Colombia, the civil engineering educational process is biased toward males, or that the instrument, a standardized multiple choice test, favors men. Moreover, the SABER-PRO test is strongly influenced by institutional and socioeconomic factors, suggesting the existence of gaps related to income, age, gender, and the educational quality of the university in which students are enrolled.