The Idea of an Essay, Volume 2

81 and persistence at a single-sex school (740). Their results indicated that students’ gender preference in friends had an influence on whether or not they would remain at the school (747). However, these preferences did not necessarily have an effect on academic achievement (741). Peer preferences did, however, play a role in whether or not a student would remain at the single-sex school, which may or may not contribute to the school’s success (748). Given the results of these studies, the question remains as to whether single-sex schools are really more beneficial than coeducational schools. In general, the test scores of students attending single-sex schools are higher than those of students attending coeducational schools, so the question remains as to whether the overall success still remains higher when student and school factors are weighed in. According to an article by Diane Halpern et al. when it comes to single-sex schooling any “apparent advantages dissolve when outcomes are corrected for pre-existing differences” (1706). Therefore, simply taking standardized test scores from a single-sex school and comparing them with scores from a coeducational school is not accurate. As seen in previous studies, the scores from a single-sex school are generally higher than those from a coeducational school. However, when factors of selection, peer quality, race, prior academic achievement, and peer preferences are weighed in, the results may even out. Therefore, the results show no real differences between the schools. Also in need of consideration are any neurological differences that may have an effect on learning capabilities of girls versus boys. Though advocates of single-sex education say that there are distinct differences between boys and girls, much of the research is neither applicable to children nor representative of the field of neuroscience. For example, in Why Gender Matters, Dr. Leonard Sax, a well-known advocate of single-sex education, talks about Virginia Technical School’s study on 508 boys and girls, who were anywhere from two months to sixteen years in age. In his review and application of the study, Sax says that different areas of the brain, specifically those involved in spatial and verbal tasks, mature at different rates according to gender. According to him, girls are six years ahead of boys in fine motor skills, but boys are four years ahead of girls in spatial abilities (93). However, as Dr. Lise Eliot points out, Sax probably