Academic Competencies: Their Interrelatedness and Gender Differences at Their High End Sebastian Bergold, Heike Wendt, Daniel Kasper, and Ricarda Steinmayr Technical University Dortmund The present study investigated (a) how a latent profile analysis based on representative data of N = 74,868 4th graders from 17 European countries would cluster the students on the basis of their reading, mathematics, and science achievement test scores; (b) whether there would be gender differences at various competency levels, especially among the top performers; (c) and whether societal gender equity might account for possible cross-national variation in the gender ratios among the top performers. The latent profile analysis revealed an international model with 7 profiles. Across these profiles, the test scores of all achievement domains progressively and consistently increased. Thus, consistent with our expectations, (a) the profiles differed only in their individuals’ overall performance level across all academic competencies and not in their individuals’ performance profile shape. From the national samples, the vast majority of the students could be reliably assigned to 1 of the profiles of the international model. Inspection of the gender ratios revealed (b) that boys were overrepresented at both ends of the competency spectrum. However, there was (c) some cross-national variation in the gender ratios among the top performers, which could be partly explained by women’s access to education and labor market participation. The interrelatedness of academic competencies and its practical implications, the role of gender equity as a possible cause of gender differences among the top performers, and directions for future research are discussed. Keywords: academic achievement, gender differences, TIMSS and PIRLS, gender equity, latent profile analysis Both in educational research and practice and by students them- selves, the belief prevails that most students exhibit considerable strengths in some domains (e.g., reading) and at the same time considerable weaknesses in other domains (e.g., mathematics; Marsh & Hau, 2004; Wang, Eccles, & Kenny, 2013). In stark contrast to this belief stand empirical findings documenting that competencies in different domains such as reading, mathematics, and science are highly intercorrelated (e.g., Reilly, 2012; Rinder- mann, 2007). These findings imply that higher competencies in one domain are likely to be accompanied by higher competencies in the other domains. Studies that investigate student profiles across different academic competency domains are lacking, even though studies using an intraindividual approach provide a more comprehensive picture of students’ overall academic competency than studies only focusing on one or two competencies (e.g., Brunner et al., 2013). Due to the high intercorrelations among different competencies, we hypothesized that students’ compe- tency profiles would only differ in the absolute values across competency domains but not in the shape of different competen- cies relative to each other when investigating reading, mathemat- ics, and science competencies. Academic competencies in differ- ent domains are partly shaped by the numerous determinants located at the country, the school, the classroom, and the student level (e.g., Byrnes & Miller, 2007). As these processes seem to work equally in comparable schooling systems, we expected that the students’ profile patterns could be replicated between countries with comparable schooling systems. Moreover, we examined gender differences in the competency profiles. We were especially interested in the profile representing those students having the highest competencies across all domains. Previous research has found that boys were overrepresented in the upper tail of the mathematics and science distribution but girls in reading competencies (e.g., Hedges & Nowell, 1995; Nowell & Hedges, 1998). Hitherto, the question has been unanswered whether more boys or girls are present in the right tail of the ability distribution when considering all three competencies simultane- ously. Answering this question is important for the ongoing debate on gender differences in academic competencies and on women’s underrepresentation in scientific careers (Ceci, Williams, & Bar- nett, 2009; Hyde, 2014). Although research suggests that gender differences in payment and promotion opportunities as well as women’s interests, career preferences, and variety of choice op- tions considerably contribute to women’s underrepresentation in science (Ceci et al., 2009; Ferriman, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009; Hunt, 2016; Wang et al., 2013), high competencies in academic domains such as reading, mathematics, and science (and spatial ability; e.g., Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009) are a further im- This article was published Online First July 18, 2016. Sebastian Bergold, Department of Psychology, Technical University Dortmund; Heike Wendt and Daniel Kasper, Institute for School Devel- opment Research, Technical University Dortmund; Ricarda Steinmayr, Department of Psychology, Technical University Dortmund. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Se- bastian Bergold, Department of Psychology, Technical University Dort- mund, Emil-Figge-Straße 50, D-44227 Dortmund, Germany. E-mail: sebastian.bergold@tu-dortmund.de This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Journal of Educational Psychology © 2016 American Psychological Association 2017, Vol. 109, No. 3, 439 – 449 0022-0663/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000140 439