ATTITUDES AND META-COGNITIVE ASPECTS OF LEARNING MATHEMATICS: AN ANALYSIS BY GENDER
KAYE STACEY[1]
ABSTRACT
Gender differences in mathematics achievement favouring boys are more often found on harder, problem solving tasks than routine questions and are more often found with older students than younger students. To examine the possible implication of factors hypothesised to be related to problem solving ability, information was gathered from 14 classes of students in Years 7 to 10. Girls consistently displayed greater meta-cognitive knowledge. Younger girls gave greater importance than boys to learning styles that are related to the teacher, effort and memorising, but by Year 10 the boys had come to value these just as much as the girls. Only on confidence and, to a lesser extent, enjoyment did the sex differences consistently favour boys.
[1] This
research has been supported by a grant from the Australian Research
Council. I wish to thank Cecilia del Beato for her careful assistance with data collection and
analysis, Ian Isaacs who assisted with the development of the scales and the
teachers and students who co-operated so willingly.