Negative marking on exams only discourages female students when the subject is math.
March 31, 2026
Original Paper
Negative Marking, Tested Content and Gender: Experimental evidence on exam-taking behavior from India
SSRN · 6496742
The Takeaway
While it's widely believed that women are generally more risk-averse in tests, this study shows the effect is context-dependent: women attempted 18% fewer questions under penalty in quantitative sections, but showed no such hesitation in qualitative sections. It suggests gender gaps in STEM might be driven by task-specific stereotypes rather than a broad personality trait.
From the abstract
Negative marking based assessments are used excessively in high-stakes competitive exams especially in STEM ecosystems in Global South countries like India. We conduct a behavioral experiment with undergraduate STEM students from India to causally estimate the gendered impact of negative-marking penalty and find a strong heterogeneous impact of negative marking depending on the type of tested content i.e. quantitative or qualitative. In the quantitative section females under penalty treatment at