Assessing Gender Factor In Some Secondary Mathematics Textbooks In Nigeria

Abstract

The majority of girls in Nigeria no longer study Mathematics and the few who do continue to have averagely lower achievement scores than boys. Apart from the cognitive factors, which have been studied extensively, affective factors have been identified as contributing to the relatively poor performance of girls in Mathematics. This study was therefore an attempt to investigate one of the affective factors, the factor of gender, in some secondary school Mathematics textbooks. Materials for the study included seven Mathematics textbooks that are commonly used in secondary school in Nigeria. The test items and illustrations in the textbooks were categorised as male-related, female-related, or neutral tasks. By using simple percentages and chi-square analysis, significant differences were observed on the number of items and illustrations that are male or female-related. The results show that the textbooks contain high percentages of male-related tasks than female-related ones.