Gender Gaps on Academic Achievement among Primary School Students and Influencing Factors ——Based on a Large-scale Assessment Data in China

Author(s):

Ruilin Wu(submitting)Meiling Niu(presenting)Yihua Sun

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

27. Didactics - Learning and Teaching

Format:

Paper

Session Information

27 SES 03 B, Primary School Curriculum and Learning

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-22

17:15-18:45

Room:

K3.05

Chair:

Isabelle Mili

Contribution

There are many international studies on gender gaps of academic achievement, and these results show that boys do well in mathematics, but in reading literacy has the opposite result. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) planned and organized by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is one of the most influential international student learning assessment items in the world. Machin and Pekkarinen analyzed the PISA data, and they found that the average reading scores of boys were lower than girls and meanwhile, boys got higher average scores in mathematics than girls. Furthermore, this gender gap was found in positive relation with the learners' academic achievement. According to the results form PISA 2012, eastern Asian countries, such as Shanghai-China, Singapore and Chinese Taipei, girls did as well as boys in mathematics, both on average and among the highest-performing students, and the gender gap in reading, in favor of girls, was narrower than OECD average.

Actually, such gender gaps are not only appeared in middle school students, but also emerged in primary school students of minority in Xinjiang. Both in Chinese and mathematic, girls did better than boys. The steady gender gap had been revealed by six years successive investigation during 2011-2016 in Xinjiang. China has long been a multiethnic and multilingual country. In the society of 21^st century, both the country and the ethnic minorities in China are facing the same problems as the other multiethnic countries of the world have. China needs to both maintain the unity of the country and to promote the diversified development of cultures of ethnic minorities. Members of each ethnic minority have to learn the common language (refers to Chinese) to step into the mainstream modern society and also to learn minority language to maintain traditional culture as well. It has resulted in an inevitable trend to develop bilingual education specialized in the common language and a minority language. As a main component of education for minorities, bilingual education also acts as an essential measure to solve the problem both in the unity of the country and the development of minorities. The function of minorities’ bilingual education will be increasingly strengthened with the further development of society.

We hypothesized there were gender differences in “problem behaviors in school” and “the interest in mathematics study” these two indexes which would affect students’ achievement and performance. Problem behaviors in school referred to the frequency of students' truancy. We also considered the related factors that influenced the education achievement of the students, including intellectual helplessness and national identity. National identity is a sense of belonging to our nation. Previous studies have found that the dimension of the evaluation and behavior about the recognition of Chinese National identity have a strongly correlation to the adaptation of interpersonal relationships which may exert an indirect influence on academic performance. Intellectual helplessness is analogous to learned helplessness. It can negatively predict students’ academic achievement. We supposed that these indexes were the main factors of influencing the academic achievement. There were two main teaching models in minority class. One was Chinese Medium Education which taught in Chinese and their own language, and the other was Uighur Medium Education which often taught in Uighur. We also supposed that different teaching model would contribute to students’ academic achievement which meant that students with higher Chinese grades would behave better in mathematic that was instructed by Chinese.

Method

This study adopted the way of "academic level exam & students’ questionnaires & teachers and principals’ questionnaires". Paper-and-pencil based testing form was used to test students’ achievements in Chinese and mathematic. The contents of test contained an integrated and characteristic system of knowledge points in line with the teaching requirements. Chinese test included listening comprehension, reading comprehension and writing, which mainly focused on students’ capacity of using the standard spoken and written Chinese language. Mathematic test contained algebra, mathematical statistics and geometry. The full score for each subject was 100. These two tests were instruments of good reliability and validity. Based on the result of a questionnaire from different primary schools, and 15004 students in Grade 6（there were 7065 boys, accounting for 47.1%; there were 7939 girls, accounting for 52.9%）, as well as the students' scores of Chinese and mathematic, the family and school factors that impact students' academic achievement have been discussed with the HLM. Through the methods of literature review and test investigation, we took the questionnaire survey on the effect factors of students' academic achievement through the correlation inspection between factors and T-test of independent sample. To be specific, we used descriptive statistics to understand the general status in academic achievement of different gender, and analyzed gender differences in problem behaviors in school, the interest to mathematics study, intellectual helplessness and national identity with T-test. The use of analysis of variance, MANOVA and other methods revealed the interaction of gender difference in academic achievements and the impact of variables. By establishing the HLM model to explore the gender and the interpretation of the influence factors on the academic performance difference, it aims to multi-angle analysis of the actual situation of primary students' academic achievement and its possible causes.

Expected Outcomes

First of all, on average, girls had overwhelming superiority both in Chinese and mathematic. There were significant differences in Chinese and mathematic (p<0.001, Cohen's d=0.269 in Chinese, Cohen's d=0.133 in mathematic). Specifically, girls scored an average of 4.72 points higher than boys in Chinese, 2.00 points higher than boys in mathematic. According to the multilevel modeling we found that gender could explain more on Chinese achievement than mathematic achievement. Second, there was gender difference in school problem behaviors. Girls behaved better at school, and had less behavioral disorders than boys (t=-10.187, p<0.001). Boys had more problem behaviors that just did not have good study habits and didn’t really understand how to study. In the interest in mathematics study, girls were ahead of boys (t=8.050, p<0.001), which contribute to the better behaviors and excellent academic results. Third, Gender differences were found in intellectual helplessness (t= -11.501, p<0.001) and national identity. Boys showed more apparent negative tendency of self-attribution than girls and lower national identity, which were the important factors that affected academic achievement. Intellectual helplessness explained an 18.1% difference in Chinese language achievement and 15.7% in mathematic achievement. National identity contributed to a 10.0% variance of Chinese performance and 6.8% on mathematic. Lastly, whichever kind of educational model it was, the gender differences were consistent. Briefly, girls got higher grades than boys (p<0.001). Cohen’d in Chinese was approximate, but in mathematics, Cohen’d in Chinese Medium Education was larger than it in Uighur Medium Education (Cohen’d=0.102 Chinese Medium Education, Cohen’d=0.137 in Uighur Medium Education). Because students’ mathematic was taught in Chinese in Chinese Medium Education, hypothetically, girls had an advantage in learning language which contributed to their understanding in mathematic learning contents.

References

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy. The exercise of control. New York: Freeman. Dickerson, A., Mcintosh, S., & Valente, C. (2013). Do the maths: An analysis of the gender gap in mathematics in Africa. Social Science Electronic Publishing, 46(6),1-22. Bedard, K., & Cho, I. (2010). Early gender test score gaps across OECD countries. Economics of Education Review, 29(3),348-363. Bharadwaj, P., Giorgi, G, D., & Hansen, D., Chris, N. (2012). The Gender Gap in Mathematics: Evidence from Low- and Middle-Income Countries. NBER Working Paper No. 18464. Ellison, G., & Swanson, A. (2010). The Gender Gap in Secondary School Mathematics at High Achievement Levels: Evidence from the American Mathematics Competitions. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(2),109-28. Fortin, N. M., Oreopoulos， P.， & Phipps， S. （2013）. Leaving Boys Behind: Gender Disparities in High Academic Achievement, NBER Working Papers, No. 19331 Fryer, R. G., & Levitt, S. D. (2010). An Empirical Analysis of the Gender Gap in Mathematics. American Economic Journal Applied Economics, 2(2),210-40. Guiso, L., Monte, F., Sapienza, P., Zingales, L. (2008). Culture, Gender, and Math. Science, 320(5880),1164-5. Lai, F. (2010). Are boys left behind? The evolution of the gender achievement gap in Beijing's middle schools. Economics of Education Review, 29(3),383-399. Machin, S., & Pekkarinen, T. (2008). Global Sex Differences in Test Score Variability. Science, 322(5906),1331-2. Organisation For Economic Co-operation And Development. (2007). PISA 2006：Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World. Paris：OECD. Organisation For Economic Co-operation And Development. (2015). PISA 2012 results: The ABC of Gender Equality in Education: Aptitude, Behaviour, Confidence. OECD Publishing. Sedek, G., & Mcintosh, D., N. (1998) Intellectual Helplessness. Personal Control in Action. Springer US. ,419-443.

Author Information

Ruilin Wu (submitting)

Beihang University

Department of Psychology

Beijing

Meiling Niu (presenting)

Beihang University, China, People's Republic of

Yihua Sun