GENDER DIFFERENCES IN PERFORMANCE ON MATHEMATICS ITEMS - EVIDENCE FROM THE UNITED-STATES AND THAILAND

The purpose of this cross-cultural study was to examine the relationship between gender and performance on a set of mathematics items which vary in both level of cognitive complexity and content. Nationally representative samples of 13-year-old children in the United States (2040 girls and 1884 boys) and Thailand (1789 girls and 1951 boys) who participated in the Second International Mathematics Study were analyzed in this study. The Mantel-Haenszel Procedure was used to quantify gender differences on 130 multiple-choice mathematics items. The results for the 130 items were then used in a repeated-measures ANOVA designed to examine the extent to which the observed gender differences on these items were related to cognitive level (computation, comprehension, and analysis) and content category (algebra, arithmetic, and geometry) of the items for American and Thai adolescents. The data suggest that both level of cognitive complexity and content category are related to gender differences. Gender differences tend to become more favorable toward boys as the level of cognitive complexity increases and also as the content changes from arithmetic through algebra to geometry. Further, these relationships appear to replicate over the cultures examined here. The implications of these results for future research on gender and mathematics performance are discussed. © 1990.