GENDER DIFFERENCES FAVOURING FEMALES IN LEARNING STRATEGIES IN MATHEMATICS

Abstract

Most universities teach mathematics in the first year and the complexity of the subject demands also different levels of mathematics. Although students understand the reason why they need to learn mathematics, there are more than half of students struggling during the math classes. It is also interesting to compare male and female students' study habits and differences. The aim of this research is to report first-year Estonian university students' views on mathematics by gender. The quantitative data were collected from 440 university students of different disciplines. The participants completed the LIST questionnaire what measures several aspects of learning strategies of mathematics conducted by factor analysis of 69 questions in 4-point Likert scale. In this research, in two of nine factors, females hold a more positive view of learning strategies than did male students. This research indicates which learning strategies in mathematics are preferred by males and females. Factors Organizing and Repeating were the factors in which we found statistically significant gender difference. Females showed more powerful organizing skills and had better repeating strategies than males. Females try to order the subject matter in a way that makes it easy for them to remember, they go over their notes and structure the most important points more than males. In all the other factors, statistical differences were found only in some questions.