Performance of undergraduate engineering students in mathematics according to gender

Abstract

The paper aims to explore the academic performance between genders (measured by cumulative grade point average (CGPA) in the first semester for a three year period) of undergraduate engineering students in Mathematics course at a public university in Malaysia. It also examines the influenced of gender towards academic performance and to find the significant difference between gender in these three years period. A random sample of more than 1000 students drawn from engineering students was chosen. Descriptive statistics used to present the main characteristics of the student. The study relied on analysis mean and z –test to analyse the data collected. The results generated revealed that the means of cumulative grade point average (CGPA) for Mathematics were slightly below 3 for both genders. The result of z-test method differs significantly across the gender for a three year period. There are a number of limitations between male and female students associated with this study. Second, this study has limitation about the difference of the academic background of the students that will give impact to their performance in their result at university. The present study is the first attempt to explore the performance of undergraduate engineering students among difference gender in the Mathematics course.