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In a longitudinal study of gender differences in mathematics, 38 girls and 44 boys, who were in classrooms with teaching based on reform ideas, were interviewed 5 times and asked to solve number fact, addition/subtraction, and nonroutine problems each year as they progressed through grades 1-3. In grade 3 only, they were also asked to solve extension problems. No gender differences were found in the ability to solve any problems except for the superior performance of boys on the extension problems in grade 3. However, significant differences in problem-solving strategies were found in all grades. Girls tended to use concrete solution strategies like modeling and counting, and boys tended to use more abstract solution strategies that reflected conceptual understanding.
These results called into question the long-accepted belief that gender differences in math appear first at adolescence. In order to understand the study results, 4 different interpretations are presented. Judith Sowder, a mathematics educator, stated that the results indicate important gender differences in learning and suggested that the findings indicate that girls` use of more concrete strategies may lead to less understanding of important ideas on which further learning of mathematics is based, which might help explain the gender differences usually found in adolescence and in math-related careers. Janet Hyde and Sara Jaffee,social psycchologists, interpreted the results as showing minimal gender differences in performance. They hypothesized that because the curriculum was not prescribed, stereotypical behaviors on the part of the teachers and students were activated, which in turn, encouraged girls and boys to solve the problems differently. Nel Noddings, a feminist philosopher, interpreted the findings as showing that boys did better on items that emphasized meaning. She suggested that we should consider that girls could be less interested in mathematics than boys and that this lower interest leads to lower performance. She goes on to question why this becomes a concern when society doesn`t show the same concern when boys are less interested than girls in activities like child care. She also cautions that no one`s self-worth should be connected to whether or not he or she can learn mathematics, and each mathematical learner should be treated individually.
The authors of the study, while offering the caveat that the study needs replication, argue that the result indicate that the girls in the study had not developed an understanding of mathematics to the same degree that the boys had. They argue that these gender-related patterns of development could lead to even stronger gender differences in later years. While offering no explanation of why there were gender differences in strategies used to solve problems, they suggest that merely reforming instruction in mathematics classes without specific attention to achieving equity for girls and boys is insufficient. |
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