Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

The effects of teacher gender on mathematics achievement of first-grade students

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  • Purpose of the Study The purpose of the study was to determine whether there were significant statistical differences in achievement between first-grade students taught mathematics by male teachers as compared to first-grade students taught mathematics by female teachers. A substantive hypothesis was formed, which stated: "This writer hypothesizes that mean-gain scores are independent of teacher gender." Two null hypotheses were formed and tested: (1) Acquisition of mathematics concepts by first-grade students will not be affected significantly by teacher gender as measured by the SRA Assessment Series; and (2) Acquisition of mathematics computation knowledge by first-grade students will not be affected significantly by teacher gender as measured by the SRA Assessment Series. Six subhypotheses were formed for each null hypothesis. The sub-hypotheses dealt with all possible combinations of teacher-student groupings. Procedures A total of 206 first-grade students participated in the study. Four male first-grade teachers were found. Six female first-grade teachers were matched with the male first-grade teachers. A pre-test was administered to the students in October and early November. A posttest was administered to the same students in May. Differences in the results of these two tests were computed as mean-gain scores. The null hypotheses were tested by analysis of covariance. The sub-hypotheses had all possible t-tests applied to them. Findings The findings of this study indicated the need to reject null hypothesis number one and number two. The effect of teacher gender was statistically significant for these null hypotheses. Students taught by male teachers had significantly higher mean-gain scores than students taught by female teachers. The gender of the student was not significant. Five of the twelve sub-hypotheses also had to be rejected due to the effects of teacher gender. Recommendations In view of the findings of this study, the writer offers the follow ing recommendations to schools of teacher education, public schools, and other groups concerned with having a balance of male and female teachers throughout the range of grade levels and subject matter: 1. Dropping the barriers that may prevent either gender from teaching at any grade or subject area. 2. Exercising strict control over such variables as quality of teachers, enthusiasm for teaching, and views on testing needs and procedure, before attempting a study of the influence of teacher gender. 3. Researching further in other areas of the curriculum to see if there are differences due to teacher gender in these other areas. 4. Conducting needed long-range studies of the effect of teacher gender on primary-grade students. 5. Using a large population of subjects to do research in the area of both social and academic influence exerted by teacher gender. 6. Conducting studies of the effects of items on the survey to determine the importance of each as it relates to mathematics achievement.
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