Gender differences in attitudes towards science: comparison of middle school students in England, Singapore and USA using complete TIMSS 2011 data

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background There are relatively few studies in the literature on attitudes towards science that focus on cross-national comparisons and, more importantly, on gender differences in this regard. Purpose To explore attitudes towards science with respect to gender for three developed countries, each from a different continent – England, Singapore, and USA. Sample The entire TIMSS 2011 data set for England, Singapore and USA was used (N = 20,246) Design and methods The survey on attitudes towards science used in TIMSS 2011 formed the basis for this study. Rasch analysis was used to treat the survey data rather than classical test analysis, Results When data for the three countries are aggregated together, overall, males showed more favorable attitudes towards science as compared to females. There are gender differences for most of the items in the attitudes scale, not only between genders in a country but also across countries as well, and the differences are statistically significant for a number of items. Though Singapore topped in science achievement, their students’ confidence in science, irrespective of gender, is low compared to those in England and USA. Also, students from the USA, especially males, disagreed more on the value of studying science as compared to the other two countries. Conclusion Large-scale international assessment data provide not only robust sample sizes but also more representative data which can be meaningfully analyzed. This has shed some useful light on not only overall gender differences in the samples but also on a country-wide and cross-national basis. Even though the three counties selected for the study are economically developed, there are still gender differences on attitudes towards science. A few factors can possibly help to explain the differences on a cross-national basis – for example, educational ecosystem, relative levels of economic development and culture.