ABSTRACT
Many feminist initiatives to develop assessment strategies for girls rest on the assumption that there are particular strategies which promote successful learning of girls. This chapter reviews a number of studies which claim to reveal differences in cognitive style between males and females. The whole field of gender-difference theory is questioned as an adequate framework for developing feminist interventions in the education of girls. Research on the comparative performance of males and females in multiple-choice tests can be divided into two types: those studies which focus on the content of what is assessed as the significant variable affecting male and female performance, and those which focus on the mode of assessment as the significant variable. The research findings on gender differences informed by readings of object-relations theory have been formative among feminist educators in constituting truths about how girls learn and about which forms of assessment favour girls' cognitive style.
