The Relationship between Gender, Age, and Attitude toward Mathematics among Malaysian Gifted Students

Abstract

Students' attitude is one of the elements that call for discussion in providing gifted education for gifted students. Specifically, students' attitude towards particular subjects contribute to their achievements in those subjects. This paper highlights students' attitude within the scope of mathematics. In Malaysia education system, mathematics is one of the core subjects and needs to be mastered by students to achieve excellence in learning. Thus, the mastery of mathematics among gifted students should be studied and discussed especially of their attitude towards mathematics. This paper presents the results of a study that examines the relationship between age, gender and attitude of gifted students towards mathematics based on their interest towards mathematics. A total of 128 gifted students aged 11 until 16 years old participated in the study. All of the students were selected from various Malaysian public schools via a special selection process before becoming full time students at Malaysia National Gifted Centre. The findings reveal that there was no relationship between age, gender and attitude of the gifted students toward mathematics.

Headnote

Abstract

Students' attitude is one of the elements that call for discussion in providing gifted education for gifted students. Specifically, students' attitude towards particular subjects contribute to their achievements in those subjects. This paper highlights students' attitude within the scope of mathematics. In Malaysia education system, mathematics is one of the core subjects and needs to be mastered by students to achieve excellence in learning. Thus, the mastery of mathematics among gifted students should be studied and discussed especially of their attitude towards mathematics. This paper presents the results of a study that examines the relationship between age, gender and attitude of gifted students towards mathematics based on their interest towards mathematics. A total of 128 gifted students aged 11 until 16 years old participated in the study. All of the students were selected from various Malaysian public schools via a special selection process before becoming full time students at Malaysia National Gifted Centre. The findings reveal that there was no relationship between age, gender and attitude of the gifted students toward mathematics.

Keywords

Attitude, Gifted Students, Relationship, Age, Gender

1.Introduction

Gifted students are known for their preciosity and possess different characteristics compared to other students as well as among themselves (Bekirogullari & Gur, 2011). There are certain identified behaviors that can influence their achievement in Mathematics(Leu & Chiu, 2015). The variety of their characteristics intrigue researchers and educators alike towards establishing an education that is appropriate with their ability. Following this pursuit, Malaysia has embarked on an effort towards developing the potentials of gifted students by providing a fully residential school in preparing a special education toward gifted and talented student since 2011(Isman, Yassin, Ishak, Yunus, & Majid, 2012). All of gifted and talented students were selected throughout Malaysia, regardless of age and gender via a special selection process such as UKM1 test, UKM2 test and PERMATApintar School holiday camp. Students selected will attend college for five years and need to do some research in science and mathematics. Since all the gifted students who participated in this study have various characteristics, this research has to be conducted to ensure that every student gets an education that suits their needs.

Most studies conducted related to the attitude of gifted students have focused on creativity (Kim, Roh, & Cho, 2016; H. Uzunboylu, Cavus, Tekin, & Taşğin, 2009), emotion (Minas, Machů, & Morysová, 2016), leaderships (Laborda et al., 2014), and personality (BeŞOluk & Çakır, 2014; Minas, Machů, Kočvarová, & Kopřivová, 2016). Nonetheless, there is a very small number of studies that look into the age of students and its relationship with their attitude toward mathematics such as teaching approach (Savelsbergh et al., 2016), teacher knowledge (Oppermann, Anders, & Hachfeld, 2016), motivational variables (García, Rodríguez, Betts, Areces, & González-Castro, 2016). Gender difference in gifted identification is one of the topics that has always been discussed in gifted education field such as the number of gifted students selected in joining the gifted program(Petersen, 2013), mathematics achievement(Felson & Trudeau, 1991; Fraser, 1994; Preckel, Goetz, Pekrun, & Kleine, 2008). Petersen (2013) found that boys were 1.19 times more likely to be identified as gifted and selected to join the gifted program compared to girls. One of the reasons why lesser girls are joining the program is peer pressure (Read, 1991). However, it was found that gender difference is not a factor that influences the attitude toward mathematics (Felson & Trudeau, 1991; Friedman-Sokuler & Justman, 2016; Hüseyin Uzunboylu, Ozdamli, Keshavarzi, & Ahmadi, 2013). Fraser (1994) and Ganley and Lubienski (2016) found that students in public schools have no significant difference in their attitude toward mathematics. Previous researches have shown mixed results in terms of gifted students' interest in mathematics. It is important to examine if similar results could be yielded from the Malaysian gifted students. Therefore the objective of this study is to investigate the relationships between gender, age and percentage of their impact toward gifted student's attitude in mathematics in Malaysia.

2.Methodology

This study employed a quantitative approach utilizing an adapted questionnaire comprising interest items. The survey questionnaire was designed with the primary objective to assess the attitude of the gifted students based on the interest items. The interest items were adopted from a questionnaire called Motivational Orientation towards Differentiated English Language Teaching (MoDiELT). The questionnaire comprises 20 items that ask their perceptions towards learning mathematics subject (Table 1). Items were rated on a 5-points scale (5=Strongly Disagree, 4=Disagree, 3=Neutral, 2=Agree and 1= Strongly Agree). The participants in this survey consisted of 128 Gifted Students aged 11 to 16 year-old of which 65 of them are boys and the rest are girls. Data were collected in Jun 2015 after mid-term examination result. It was analyzed by using SPSS software. Cronbach Alpha was chosen to calculate the validity of the data and Pearson correlation, regression and t-test methods were used to determine the relationships between age, gender and attitude towards mathematics.

3.Results and Discussion

3.1.Analysis of the Validity of the Result

The consistency of the survey was determined using Cronbach's alpha statistical factor. It is an indicator of how well the condition or characteristics of the data either it can be accepted or not. Generally, reliability coefficients of Cronbach's alpha of 0.70 or more are considered acceptable and indicate that the survey element is consistent and valid. Tables 2-4 show that the coefficient of the Cronbach's Alpha of two categories items for the survey elements is close to 1. Therefore data obtained are very reliable in yielding the result for the purpose of the study.

3.2.Attitude of Gifted and Talented Student toward Mathematics Subject

3.2.1. Age Approach

The relationship between the age of gifted students and their attitude toward mathematics was investigated by using Pearson correlation method. Scatterplot was used to determine the pattern of data collected and to evaluate the quality of the relationship. Figure 1 and Figure 2 show that there is no significant relationship between age and attitude of gifted students in which only 12% affected the positive attitude and 4% affected negative attitude of gifted students toward mathematics.

Table 7 describes the mean and standard deviations of each group consist of male and female students. The means represent the average number of students who are really interested or not interested in mathematics subject on a five-point scale. It is obvious that the average number of male students who were really interested in mathematics subject is 24.5846 whereas for female student is 25.8095..

Table 8 describes independent sample t-test information to ascertain whether there is a significant difference between male and female students in relation to a number of students either interested or not interested in mathematics. The test revealed that there is no significant difference between male and female students in relation to the number of students who are interested in mathematics (t=-0894, df= 126, p >0.05). Besides that, the same goes to the number of students who are not interested in mathematics subject. There is no evidence against the idea that there is significant difference between male and female students in relation to the number of students who are not interested in mathematics (t=0.627, df=126, p>0.05).

4.Conclusion

The difference between age and gender are common elements in the assessment because it determines the suitability the subject interacts with situations and circumference. Different situation or context will generate different outcomes to the factors of age and gender of the participants, which sometimes favor females rather than males, or vice versa. In the case of the attitude of gifted students toward mathematics, there is no significant difference between male and female gifted students. Beside that the student's interest toward mathematics also is not affected by increasing ages.

Sidebar

How to cite this paper: Kamarudin, M. F. B., Kamarulzaman, M. H. B., & Ishak, N. M. (2018). The Relationship between Gender, Age, and Attitude toward Mathematics among Malaysian Gifted Students. The Educational Review, USA, 2(8), 410-416.

http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/er.2018.08.001

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