A Comparative Study of Male and Female Distance Learners’ Mathematics Achievement

The purpose of this Ex Post facto study was to investigate the difference in mathematics achievement between male and female learners offering Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) by distance at the Institute for Distance and eLearning (IDeL), University of Education, Winneba (UEW). Three consecutive year cohort groups (i.e. 2015, 2016 and 2017) of DBE distance learners were purposively selected from all the forty distance education centers of IDeLUEW. There were 6,468, 3,483 and 3,276 learners in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 year groups respectively. This gave a sample size of 13,227 distance learners for the study. The End-of-semester mathematics examinations grades of the learners in Math I and Math II were retrieved from the UEW-IDeL registry and analysed comparatively using ChiSquare tests. Generally, the results show a below average performance in mathematics for both genders. However, there were statistically significant differences in the achievement of Mathematics between male and female distance learners in each of the three years with the males attaining higher grades than their female counterparts. It is recommended that teacher education institutions engaged in distance programmes should pay special attention to the gender gap in mathematics achievement and adopt strategies to motivate them to pursue the subject.

Keywords: distance learners, gender, Mathematics achievement