STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS MATHEMATICS: DOES CLASSROOM LEARNING ENVIRONMENT OF SINGLEGENDER 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.