Gender effect on the performance of junior secondary school students in mathematics: a case study of schools in Ibadan Municipal

Abstract

This study investigated gender effect on the performance of Junior Secondary School (JSS) students in mathematics in Ibadan municipal. It is a descriptive survey using an ex-post-facto research design. This study made use of the Junior School Certificate Examination results of students for the year 2003-2009from twenty> junior secondary schools in five different Local Government Areas in Ibadan municipal. The selected schools consisted of 13 co-educational and 7 single-sex schools. Four schools were randomly selected from each Local Government Area and the results of a total of 24,476 students were sampled. Five research questions were raised and five null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance using simple percentages and t-test analysis. The results showed that general mean performance of mate students (4.02%) is greater than that of female students (3.88%)). Results from other studies have shown that there has been continued gender disparity’ in performance in favour of boys and that boys contribute more to classroom interaction and dominate in hands-on activities, such as laboratory> work and computer sessions. Consequent upon this, it was recommended that cognizance should be taken of the gender difference in the designing and implementation of educational programmes and policies.