Could Online Technology be a Clue as to why Boys in Norway are Outperforming Girls in Learning English as a Second Language?

Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva from Pexels

New Study Uses Data of More Than a Million Children

Bucking conventionality, boys in Norway are making early gains in reading English as a second language and even outperforming girls at age 10 and 13 – a new study of more than one million students suggests.

Publishing their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, experts from the University of Oslo propose the perhaps unexpected results might be explained by online gaming and experiences with other digital technologies such as YouTube – with English being the language of the internet.

“Our findings show boys were not experiencing a general improvement in language proficiency but rather an improvement specific to the English language,” says lead author Professor Astrid Marie Jorde Sandsør, whose team’s findings demonstrate girls did better than the boys in learning their native tongue.

“The indication is that gender differences in how students interact with English in contexts outside school could explain the difference in the gender gap development.”“While first/official languages are acquired through interacting with most aspects of daily life, additional languages are much more context-specific,” co-author Professor Lisbeth M. Brevik, from Oslo’s Department of Teacher Education and School Research, adds.

And the context proposed is gaming online; engaging with YouTube; and watching films. Recent, existing surveys carried out in Norway into social media use among children demonstrate nearly two thirds of boys report gaming many times a week, compared with only a minority of girls. In addition, boys more often than girls reported using English for playing online games, engaging with YouTube and watching films.

“Survey evidence provides a potential explanation,” says Professor Brevik.

“The explanation suggests that language use through technology and interest (in this technology) has the potential to influence language acquisition. It may also play a role in closing the gender gap we typically observe today.”

Since 2000, international trends have identified large and consistent gender gaps in favour of girls for reading literacy in a first language.

However, language proficiency in English as a second language among males exceeded that of females in 2021 for the first time since 2014. This is according to standardised English test results, the EF SET which is used worldwide for English proficiency certification.

The aim of this study was to investigate development of gender gaps over time in learning English as a second language, compared with language proficiency in Norwegian learned as a native language.

The researchers analyzed test and exam results from 2007 and 2018 from 1.1 million students in Norway at different stages of education. National education registries covering the entire Norwegian student population were used.

For English proficiency, the authors focused on language as measured by national tests including for vocabulary, grammar and reading comprehension. They also analyzed high-stakes overall achievement and exam grades at age 15, defined as written and oral English language proficiency results graded by teachers and external assessors.

For Norwegian, the researchers compared national test results among boys and girls for reading proficiency as well as high-stakes overall achievement and exam grades.

The national tests for English and Norwegian were for 10-year-olds born between 1997 and 2008; and for those aged 13 born between 1991 and 2002. The high-stakes tests were for 15-year-olds born from 1991 to 2002.

The development of gender gaps was also investigated using data from the same students and measured at age 10, 13 and 15.

Results showed little difference initially between genders in the national English test performance at age 10. However, the authors found a gradual shift in favour of boys, with males outperforming females in 2018 test results. Yet girls consistently outperformed boys in high stakes overall achievement and exam grades in English at age 15 throughout the time period (2007-2018).

As for Norwegian, girls outperformed boys for all types of tests with the greatest difference at age 15 for high stakes overall achievement and exam grades, indicating that boys were not experiencing a general increase in language proficiency.

Interestingly though, while boys increased their test scores compared to girls for ages 10 and 13 in English, a comparison of English to Norwegian showed that boys had a relative improvement for all tests, also those given at age 15.

“This finding indicates that boys’ earlier gains in English language proficiency may also have translated into more comprehensive high-stakes achievement measures but not sufficiently to decrease the gender gap. The way both English and Norwegian is measured in lower secondary school may contribute to the continuing trend of boys falling further behind in the education system,” explains Professor Brevik.

Concluding, the team recommends that in addition to improving the assessment of English, more knowledge on gender differences in second or additional languages – particularly those related to the different domains of language proficiency – will be “important”.

Limitations of the research include that the tests for English and Norwegian are not exactly the same and do not measure across the same domains. Therefore, the authors explain, “we should be cautious when drawing true conclusions from their comparison”.