undergraduates' attitudes and the study of mathematics at the ...

Some studies have shown that girls in single-sex schools performed better than girls in mixed
schools in Nigerian and Swaziland schools (Lockhead and Komenan, 1988; Kaino, 1996).
Though many studies did not investigate factors which affected girls performance in class,
factors such as family influences, traditional and school characteristics had a role to play in
influencing girls performance. For example girls had less time to study as they were burdened
with household tasks at home (than boys) and this was likely to lower their achievement
(Fapohunda 1978, Wrzesinska 1980, and Wheldon and Smith 1986). School characteristics could
involve for example the type of school (girls, boys or mixed), sex of teachers and the attitudes of
both students as well as teachers in learning in the school environment. Other school
characteristics could be the situation where teachers were less likely to encourage girls to pursue
maths and science subjects (Eshiwani 1983) and girls' schools where girls were more confident
with better performance than girls in mixed schools (Kaino, 1996).
Gender studies in mathematics
Many studies on gender differences in the study of maths have been done in developed countries
than in developing countries. While studies in developed countries have indicated that gender
differences in mathematical performance were diminishing in these countries, some other studies
have come up with contradicting views. The study by Hyde et al (1990) showed that for the past
30 years gender differences in maths performance were diminishing in developed countries. This
contention was supported by studies in Canada and United States by Lafortune (1989) and Frost
et al (1994) respectively. While Lafortune showed that girls and boys performed equally well in
maths the study revealed that girls had still some more negative attitude towards maths due to
their greater anxiety when learning maths.
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