STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS MATHEMATICS: DOES CLASSROOM LEARNING ENVIRONMENT OF SINGLE-GENDER CLASSES MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE?

Abstract

Mathematics is an important subject as it supports most of the social sciences and almost all natural sciences. Both the teaching and teaching and learning aspects of Mathematics are quite different from other subjects of the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. Therefore, teaching and learning process of Mathematics demands specific learning environment and Mathematics related attitudes both of the teachers and the students. Studying these aspects in single-gender classroom becomes even more significant. The study at hand focuses on exploring the relationship between these two variables on the basis of gender. The 11th grade male and female Mathematics students enrolled during academic year 2012-2013 in public sector colleges of Punjab province of Pakistan constituted the population of the study. The sample of the study included randomly selected 1717 students from the public sector colleges located in six randomly selected districts of the Punjab province. In order to collect data, two Urdu translated questionnaires namely, What Is Happening in This Class (WIHIC), and Questionnaire of Mathematics-Related Attitude (QOMRA) were used. The data was collected in the last month of the academic year so that the attitude of students in real sense may be determined. Research findings revealed that male and female students’ perception about their classroom learning environment significantly differs from each other. The male students perceived more supportive learning environment in Mathematics classroom than the female learners. Moreover, it was also found out that classroom learning environment has a feeble effect on students’ attitude towards Mathematics. However, it was found that the male students showed relatively more positive attitude towards Mathematics than the female students