The Influence of Gender on Junior Secondary School Students Attitude towards Mathematics in Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State

Abstract

This paper is on the influence of gender on junior secondary school student’s attitude towards mathematics in Ovia North East local government area of Edo state. The descriptive survey design was employed for the study. The population of the study comprised of all the JSS3 students, a total of Three Thousand Six Hundred and Ninety (3690) students in the 12 public junior secondary schools in in Ovia North East local government area of Edo State. Three schools selected from the 11 wards in the local government constituted the sample of the study. The simple random technique was used to select one hundred and fifty students (fifty from each of the three schools) in the Local Government Area. The instrument that was used for this study was the Secondary Student Mathematics Questionnaire (SSMQ). Mean score, t-test and analysis of variance was used to analyze the responses from the respondents. It was revealed that the attitude of the student towards mathematics was positive. The study also revealed that there is a difference between the attitude of male and female students in mathematics.

Key words: Mathematics, gender, attitude, and performance