Students’ performance and faculty efficiency. Assessing the role of gender through a metafrontier

• Published in: Journal of economic studies (Bradford) Vol. 51; no. 9; pp. 323 - 337
• Main Authors: Barra, Cristian, Destefanis, Sergio, Sena, Vania, Zotti, Roberto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Glasgow Emerald Publishing Limited 2024; Emerald Group Publishing Limited
• Subjects: Academic disciplines; Averages; College students; Colleges & universities; Earnings; Education policy; Educational technology; Efficiency; Females; Gender; Gender differences; Gender equity; Gender pay gap; Higher education; Labor market; Mathematics; Probability; Science and technology; STEM education; Teacher evaluations; Teaching; University students; Women; United Kingdom > UK; United States > US; Italy; Women in STEM fields; Metafrontier; I23; C67; University efficiency; I20
• ISSN: 0144-3585; 1758-7387
• DOI: 10.1108/JES-01-2024-0037

PurposeThis paper provides novel evidence on the role of gender in the performance of university students, which is particularly relevant to the debate on the performance of female students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.Design/methodology/approachOur approach relies on the metafrontier approach proposed by Huang et al. (2014), which measures students' efficiency within a given faculty and the impact of the faculty’s technology on students’ efficiency. We use a sample of 53,159 first-year students in 8 faculties from a large university in southern Italy from 2002–2003 to 2010–2011.FindingsStudents’ efficiency is relatively low, reflecting an essential role of unobserved heterogeneity. The different technologies of somewhat similar faculties have minimal impact on efficiency. There is a performance gap against women in five faculties, which on average is strongest for the faculties in the pure and applied science area. This gap increases with the proportion of female students and decreases with female lecturers.Practical implicationsThe metafrontier has the benefit of providing relevant policy information on the drivers of student success by relying on data that universities routinely generate and preserve.Originality/valueThe stochastic metafrontier approach allows us to separate the group-specific frontiers from the metafrontier, yielding a decomposition of the efficiency scores of various faculties into technical efficiency scores and technological gaps.