COMPARATIVE
STUDY BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN MATHEMATICS
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the study
Gender bias has posed a lot of
problems and great concern to educationists. Girls and women from middle and
upper class parents are at advantage position when it comes to the provision of
education, especially where there are boys and girls in the family. As for the
upper class parents, they stand a chance of educating both boys and girls. On
the other hand, parents that are poor are likely not to be able to send all
their children to school.
Thus, when it comes to who is to go
to school, girls and women are placed at a disadvantage. The usual reason is
that, girls and women are taken for marriage and therefore, it is more
important to educate the boy-child. This trend is prominent in the Northern
part of Nigeria (NTI, 2004). Now the “big” question is in giving equal
opportunities to both boys and girls, who among them will perform? Some schools
of thought (NTI, 2004) attribute to background of a child, in the sense that a
child from upper class parents will have access to qualitative education and
will be exposed to a lot of things a poor parent cannot reach. However, it is
not always true that children from middle and upper class perform better and
achieve morethan those poor and uneducated parents, despite their exposures. It
is rather possible to have children from high socio-economic status not
performing well in school.
Children of the poor and uneducated
or of low socio-economic status parents may perform well in school and
consequently attain high educational status on the other hand. Ale (2009)
states that mathematics is one of the basic ingredients to understand science
and technology. He further argues that the gap that exists between the
developed and the developing countries had their roots in mathematics accomplishments.
Kuku (2009) declares that a nation cannot develop meaningful road to technology
without mathematics. It suffices to say that for any meaningful road to
technological development of any country, its citizenry must have a sound
knowledge of qualitative and analytical subjects like mathematics, physics and
others since the social and economic development of any country largely depend
on them. Bassey (2015) says that mathematics has been exemplified from the fact
that “mathematics is the door and key to science and technology”. However, in
Nigerian society, the understanding of this science subject at the Secondary
School Certificate Examination (SSCE) is misplaced.
The teachers besides gender may be
the key players; a teacher who is harsh will tend to discourage the students.
More so, students’ perception of the subject (mathematics) would always
influence their school academic performance.
The fact remains that apathy among the students is
their greatest enemy which Interferes with their performances. Mathematics as
the bed rock of science and technology must be significantly developed in order
to meet up with the global practice and expected technological need of the
nation and of its citizenry. Odilli(2016) postulates that mathematics is the
queen of the science and no nation can hope to achieve any measure of
scientific or technological advancement and development without proper
foundation in school mathematics, but unfortunately, mathematics is one of the
most poorly taught, widely hated and abysmally understood subject in the Nigerian
school system. Most secondary school students particularly the girls do run
away from mathematics. The postulation of girls’ students avoiding or running
away from mathematics might have borne out of negative conceptions from other
people that mathematics is difficult or it is abstract. This motivates the
researchers to analyse the level of performance of male and female students of
mathematics at Senior Secondary Certificate Examination level.
Education
is one of the basic human needs. It enables human beings to lead a balanced
life and contribute to society in the best possible way. Our Holy Prophet
Muhammad (SAWW) advised the Muslims to seek knowledge from cradle to grave.
Education is a progressive development of the individual in all faculties: physical,
intellectual and moral. As a result of disciplined growth of the entire
personality, an educated person shows balanced development in all aspects. The
teaching pedagogy is vital because method is nothing but a scientific way of
presenting the ideas, keeping in mind the psychological requirements of the
children. The better achievement of educational institutions can bring
prosperity in a country. Responsible supervisory staff should be well trained
for effective check and balance that helps the staff to solve the academic
problems. In Pakistan educational supervision very scarcely takes advantages of
the modern ideas and theories. Management keeps work of supervision-limited to
the achievement of faculty staff (Government of Pakistan, 2009).The deficiencies
impaired the quality of teaching and learning that contributed to health and
safety problems for staff and students. Building design had been linked with
teacher motivation and student achievement (Filardo, 2008). One of the most
essential duties for administrators was to provide suitable facilities
(Kowalski, 2006).
Mathematics
occupies central position in education because mathematics is a science and the
nucleus of all other sciences, which lays strong emphasis on both theory and
practical. Mathematics is also called the science of reasoning. There were a
few premises on which we based our reasoning. Reasoning in Mathematics is of
two types: Inductive and deductive. When statements containing mathematical
truths were based on general observations and experience, reasoning is called
inductive whereas deductive type the statements are products of mind. The
method of teaching is very important for teacher of any subject generally and
for the mathematics teacher particularly. Method is nothing but a scientific
way of presenting the subject, keeping in mind the psychological and physical
requirements of the children. For effective learning of mathematics the method
has to be as good as the content. It is through method only that it is possible
to make a subject interesting and useful. While teaching a set of pupils with
varying interests, aptitudes and attitudes, one should be aware of the
psychological basis of teaching learning process. Communication of ideas and
development of concepts in a precise manner based on a logical development of
subject is the most important pre-requisite in teaching a subject like
mathematics. Generally students were afraid of studying mathematics, as there
are various reasons for that method being one of them. Pupils tend to learn
mathematics through a meaningful approach rather than by a mechanical process.
Education has many aspects e.g. learning, guidance and counseling, evaluation,
teaching and testing. Testing is a process for accurate evaluation. An
instrument used for testing is called test. Tests may be used as an evaluative,
teaching, guiding, supervisory and research device (Garrison, 1960). Tests are
used to measure the quality or genuineness. Achievement tests are used to
measure students’ knowledge (Aiken, 1985), actual learning in education subject
matter (Freeman, 2015).
Statement
of the Problem
The major
concern and an important function of the school system is to improve the
academic performance of students and produce a pool of skilled manpower that
will help a nation to grow and develop irrespective of their sex or gender. The
Nigerian education system is faced with a lot of problems is continuous poor
performance of students in both internal and internal examinations in almost
every subject.
It is
obvious that the Nigerian culture regards male as superior to their female
counter parts, thus gender- role differentiation is very much pronounced in our
society. This places a very serious constrains on the academic performance of
male and female students in mathematics
either directly or indirectly. Previous researches on the differences in
classroom performance between male and female student’s shows mixed results
while significant differences exist in some studies, others show no
differences.
In view
of the above, the researcher will compare the academic performance of male and
female students in mathematics with special reference to ikere local government area
Objectives of the study
The specific objectives of the
study were as under:
1. To
compare the achievement of male and female students in the subject of
mathematics in secondary schools in Ikere
Local Government Area of Ekiti State
2. To
compare the achievement of male and female students in the subject of
mathematics in s secondary school level with respect to teachers’ teaching
experience.
3. To
compare the achievement of male and female students in the subject of
mathematics in secondary school level
with respect to teachers’ qualifications.
4. To examine gender difference in positive attitude of teachers towards
students.
Research
Question
1.
Does male students performance better than female
students in mathematics in Ikere Local government area of ekiti state
2.
To what extents does male and female students
perform in mathematics with respect to teacher working experiences
3.
Does male students perform better in
mathematics than female students with respect to teachers qualification?
4.
Does gender have posititve attitude towards
students academc performance in mathematics
Hypotheses
To achieve the above objectives
following null hypotheses were tested:
1. There
is no significant difference in the achievement of male and female students of
mathematics in secondary schools.
2. There
is no significant difference between the achievement of male and female
students in the subject of mathematics in secondary school level with respect
teachers’ teaching experience.
3. There
is no significant difference between the achievement of male and female
students in the subject of mathematics in secondary school level with respect
teachers’ qualifications.
4. There is no significant gender
difference with respect to positive attitude of teachers towards students.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study
will be of benefit to educational agencies and government ministry of education
to reach a concrete conclusion as to what type of secondary school embarked on
would be beneficial to the pupils and the government and help to achieve the
national goals in education as stated in the curriculum.
Parents
and guidance will have positive thinking and better understanding as to whether
to send their children to either private or public secondary schools.
it will
help to shed more light and endure useful information in the achievement of
student in both private and public secondary schools.
Scope of the study
This
study will compare the academic performance of male and female students in five
selected secondary schools in Ikere
Local Government Area of Ekiti State. Simple random sampling techques was used to selected five
secondary schools in the study area. The study compare the performance of make
and female students in mathematics.