[Increased female/male student ratio and the higher academic achievement of the female students of Rafsanjanuniversity of medical sciences in academic year 2003-2004]

ABSTRACT

Decreased males' motivation for entering universities has caused a low male/female ratio in different university majors. This problem may lead to the development of a mono-sex system for health service providers and will affect the social health system. As females constitute the majority of students in most majors, in this study academic achievement of girls is compared to that of the boys.This cross-sectional study was performed on 114 medical and 50 dentistry students who were enrolled at Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences in the spring of 2003. Grade-point average [GPA] was used as a marker for academic achievement. The scores were classified into 3 groups; A [17-20], B [14-16.99] and C [less than 13.99]. Data were analyzed by Chi-square test.This study indicated that not only girls constitute the majority of students in the Medicine and Dentistry majors, but also the academic achievement of girls was significantly higher than that of the boys. Among medical students only 2.7% of the boys had A scores, while 18.2% of the girls had A scores. Furthermore, among dentistry students, none of the male students had A scores while 8% of the girls had an A score.It seems that the observed differences, are not related to academic intelligence. These differences may have originated from the decreased motivation in male students for studying efficiently after the enrollment