WASHINGTON - THE notion that boys are better at maths simply does not add up, claimed a study published yesterday.

Three years after Harvard president Lawrence Summers got into trouble for questioning women’s ‘intrinsic aptitude’ for science and engineering - and 16 years after the talking Barbie doll proclaimed that ‘maths class is tough’ - the study paid for by the National Science Foundation has found that girls perform as well as boys in standardised maths tests.

Although high school boys performed better than girls in mathematics 20 years ago, the researchers found that is no longer the case.

The reason, they said, is simple: Girls used to take fewer advanced maths courses than boys, but now they are taking just as many.

‘Now that enrolment in advanced maths courses is equalised, we don’t see gender differences in test performance,’ said Ms Marcia Linn of the University of California, Berkeley, a co-author of the study.

‘But people are surprised by these findings, which suggests to me that the stereotypes are still there.’

The findings, reported in yesterday’s issue of Science magazine, are based on maths scores from seven million students in 10 US states, tested in accordance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The researchers looked at the average of the test scores of all students, the performance of the most gifted children and the ability to solve complex maths problems.

They found, in every category, that girls did as well as boys.

Professor Janet Hyde, from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the study, said the persistent stereotypes about girls and maths had taken a toll.

‘The stereotype that boys do better at maths is still held widely by teachers and parents,’ she said.

‘And teachers and parents guide girls, giving them advice about what courses to take, what careers to pursue. I still hear anecdotes about guidance counsellors steering girls away from engineering, telling them they won’t be able to do the maths.’

The stereotype has been fuelled, at least in part, by suggestions of biological differences in the way little boys and little girls learn.

This idea is hotly disputed. Mr Summers was castigated in 2005 when he questioned the ‘intrinsic aptitude’ of women for top-level maths and science.

Ms Joy Lee, a rising senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, said she always felt confident about maths, but remembered how it felt to walk into a science class full of boys.

‘Maybe I was a little bit apprehensive about being the only girl, but that didn’t last for very long,’ said Ms Lee, president of a school club that tries to get young girls interested in science and technology, along with engineering and maths.

‘I definitely do encourage other girls to pursue those interests and to not be scared to take those courses just because there are not very many girls or because they think they’re not good enough to do it.’

Girls are still under-represented in high school physics classes and, as noted by Mr Summers, who resigned as Harvard president in 2006, in the highest levels of physics, chemistry and engineering, which require advanced maths skills.

Prof Hyde said that there is no difference in innate ability that can explain why women are so under-represented in maths and science careers.

Currently, women make up only 15 per cent of doctoral candidates in engineering programmes, for example.

Still, while there are fewer women in science and technology, there are more women in college overall.

To Prof Hyde and her colleagues, that helps explain why girls consistently score lower on average on the SAT: More of them take the test, which is needed to get into college. The highest-performing students of both genders take the test, but more girls lower on the achievement scale take it, skewing the average.

For the class of 2007, the latest figures available, boys scored an average of 533 in the maths section of the SAT, compared with 499 for girls.

On the ACT, another college entrance test in which girls lag slightly, the gender gap disappeared in Colorado and Illinois once state officials required all students to take the test.

‘There’s nothing in any of these data that would suggest that girls can’t do maths or aren’t doing well in maths,’ said Professor Diane Halpern, a professor of psychology at California’s Claremont McKenna College who was not involved in the study.

Prof Hyde said: ‘We need to get the word out to the high school teachers and counsellors that girls are as good as boys at maths.’

And mothers who grew up with maths stereotypes need to be especially careful.

‘Even if you believe you can’t do maths, you can just keep quiet about it,’ she said.

NEW YORK TIMES, REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS