Figure 1 shows the grade distributions for female and
male students in the first and the second semesters. It can be
observed that for female students, the grade distributions in
the first semester black, without online homework and the
second semester white, with online homework are very different, while for male students, there is hardly any difference
between the semesters. Going back to the original data from
Ref. 12, it was shown that the grade distribution of female
students was significantly different from the male distribution in the first semester, indicating a significant gender gap,
but this difference almost vanished in the second
semester7—the female students had “caught up” to their
male counterparts. A similar effect was observed at Central
Michigan University.13