Gender debate is not worthy in the 21st century classroom: Evidence-based outcomes from psychological abilities in students
Abstract
The debate about differences in intellectual abilities is far from over. This debate has astronomically drifted from academic success to mental possessions. In this regard, the current study examined curiosity, creativity, and academic motivation in students for possible differences in terms of gender. A total of 568 high school students were surveyed using a cross-sectional design. The data were gathered using adapted curiosity, creativity, and academic motivation scales to test for possible differences. Male and female students had similar abilities in curious, creative, and motivated potentials, according to the test MANOVA results [F (3,549) = 0.718, p > 0.610; Wilks’ Lambda = 0.993, partial eta squared = 0.007]. This could be the result of similar opportunities presented to both male and female students in their academic journey. Therefore, educational policies on gender parity should be developed to help tone down unnecessary comparisons and mental competition between male and female students in the areas of curiosity, creativity, and academic motivation.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
1. Hägg S, Jylhävä J. Sex differences in biological aging with a focus on human studies. eLife 2021; 10: e63425. doi: 10.7554/eLife.63425
2. Parker K, Horowitz JM, Stepler R. On Gender Differences, No Consensus on Nature vs. Nurture. United States of America; 2017.
3. Anggraini NP, Budiyono, Pratiwi H. Cognitive differences between male and female students in higher order thinking skills. Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2019; 1188(1): 012006. doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/1188/1/012006
4. Upadhayay N, Guragain S. Comparison of cognitive functions between male and female medical students: A pilot study. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research 2014; 8(6): BC12–BC15. doi: 10.7860/JCDR/2014/7490.4449
5. Giofrè D, Allen K, Toffalini E, Caviola S. The impasse on gender differences in intelligence: A meta-analysis on WISC batteries. Educational Psychology Review 2022; 34(1): 2543–2568. doi: 10.1007/s10648-022-09705-1
6. Irwing P. Sex differences in g: An analysis of the US standardization sample of the WAIS-III. Personality and Individual Differences 2012; 53(2): 126–131. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.05.001
7. Reilly D, Neumann DL, Andrews G. Gender differences in self-estimated intelligence: Exploring the male hubris, female humility problem. Frontiers in Psychology 2022; 13: 812483. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.812483
8. Betancourt J, Valadez MdlD, Rodríguez-Naveiras E, et al. Differences between creativity and gender in students with high abilities attending a school with total grouping. Children 2022; 9(7): 1081. doi: 10.3390/children9071081
9. Davies S, Broekema H, Nordling M, Furnham A. Do women want to lead? Gender differences in motivation and values. Psychology 2017; 8(1): 27–43. doi: 10.4236/psych.2017.81003
10. Tosun C. Effect of gender on levels of curiosity towards scenarios prepared within the scope of the “matter and change” unit at the 5th grade. Pamukkale Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi 2018; 44(44): 1–14. doi: 10.9779/PUJE.2018.202
11. Parajuli M, Thapa A. Gender differences in the academic performance of students. Journal of Development and Social Engineering 2017; 3(1): 39–47.
12. Turhan NS. Gender differences in academic motivation: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Psychology and Educational Studies 2020; 7(2): 211–224. doi: 10.17220/ijpes.2020.02.019
13. Kashdan TB, Disabato DJ, Goodman FR, McKnight PE. The five-dimensional curiosity scale revised (5DCR): Briefer subscales while separating overt and covert social curiosity. Personality and Individual Differences 2020; 157: 109836. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2020.109836
14. Kashdan TB, Goodman FR, Disabato DJ, et al. Curiosity has comprehensive benefits in the workplace: Developing and validating a multidimensional workplace curiosity scale in United States and German employees. Personality and Individual Differences 2020; 155: 109717. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2019.109717
15. Kashdan TB, Stiksma MC, Disabato DJ, et al. The five-dimensional curiosity scale: Capturing the bandwidth of curiosity and identifying four unique subgroups of curious people. Journal of Research in Personality 2018; 73: 130–149. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2017.11.011
16. Brod G, Breitwieser J. Lighting the wick in the candle of learning: Generating a prediction stimulates curiosity. NPJ Science of Learning 2019; 4: 17. doi: 10.1038/s41539-019-0056-y
17. Shah PE, Weeks HM, Richards B, Kaciroti N. Early childhood curiosity and kindergarten reading and math academic achievement. Pediatric Research 2018; 84(3): 380–386. doi: 10.1038/s41390-018-0039-3
18. Engelhard G, Monsaas JA. Grade level, gender, and school-related curiosity in urban elementary schools. The Journal of Educational Research 1988; 82(1): 22–26. doi: 10.1080/00220671.1988.10885860
19. Abakpa BO, Abah JA, Agbo-Egwu AO. Science curiosity as a correlate of academic performance in mathematics education: Insights from Nigerian higher education. African Journal of Teacher Education 2018; 7(1): 36–52. doi: 10.21083/ajote.v7i1.3904
20. Hartini H, Harmi H, Fadila F, et al. Expressing the level of curiosity of students studying in college. Jurnal Konseling dan Pendidikan 2020; 8(2): 112–116. doi: 10.29210/148100
21. Suhirman S, Yusuf Y, Hunaepi H, Ikhsan M. Scientific curiosity of biology teacher candidate. Journal of Innovation in Educational and Cultural Research 2022; 3(3): 405–411. doi: 10.46843/jiecr.v3i3.123
22. Turan MB, Kömür Z, Aydoğan M, Demirel M. Curiosity levels of university student studying in the various departments. The Online Journal of Recreation and Sport 2012; 1(3): 19–26.
23. Jaen MCA, Baccay ES. Curiosity, motivation, attitude, gender, and mathematics performance. The Normal Lights 2016; 10(2): 89–103. doi: 10.56278/tnl.v10i2.255
24. Kashdan TB, Gallagher MW, Silvia PJ, et al. The curiosity and exploration inventory-II: Development, factor structure, and psychometrics. Journal of Research in Personality 2009; 43(6): 987–998. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2009.04.011
25. Silvia PJ. Interest—The curious emotion. Current Directions in Psychological Science 2008; 17(1): 57–60. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00548.x
26. Silvia PJ. Appraisal components and emotion traits: Examining the appraisal basis of trait curiosity. Cognition and Emotion 2008; 22(1): 94–113. doi: 10.1080/02699930701298481
27. Chiu MS. Gender differences in predicting STEM choice by affective states and behaviors in online mathematical problem solving: Positive-affect-to-success hypothesis. Journal of Educational Data Mining 2020; 12(2): 48–77.
28. Donnellan E, Aslan S, Fastrich GM, Murayama K. How are curiosity and interest different? Naïve Bayes classification of people’s beliefs. Educational Psychology Review 2022; 34(1): 73–105. doi: 10.1007/s10648-021-09622-9
29. Rich-Edwards JW, Kaiser UB, Chen GL, et al. Sex and gender differences research design for basic, clinical, and population studies: Essentials for investigators. Endocrine Reviews 2018; 39(4): 424–439. doi: 10.1210/er.2017-00246
30. Schmidt HG, Rotgans JI. Epistemic curiosity and situational interest: Distant cousins or identical twins? Educational Psychology Review 2021; 33: 325–352. doi: 10.1007/s10648-020-09539-9
31. Thompson PS, Klotz AC. Led by curiosity and responding with voice: The influence of leader displays of curiosity and leader gender on follower reactions of psychological safety and voice. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes 2022; 172: 104170. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2022.104170
32. Vincent-Lancrin S, González-Sancho C, Bouckaert M, et al. Fostering Students’ Creativity and Critical Thinking: What It Means in School. Educational Research and Innovation. OECD Publishing; 2019.
33. Foster N, Schleicher A. Assessing creative skills. Creative Education 2022; 13(1): 1–29. doi: 10.4236/ce.2022.131001
34. Grey S, Morris P. Capturing the spark: PISA, twenty-first century skills and the reconstruction of creativity. Globalisation, Societies and Education 2022. doi: 10.1080/14767724.2022.2100981
35. Vincent-Lancrin S. Fostering students’ creativity and critical thinking in science education. In: Berry A, Buntting C, Corrigan D, et al. (editors). Education in the 21st Century. Springer; 2021. pp. 29–47. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-85300-6_3
36. Plucker JA, Beghetto RA, Dow GT. Why isn’t creativity more important to educational psychologists? Potentials, pitfalls, and future directions in creativity research. Educational Psychologist 2004; 39(2): 83–96. doi: 10.1207/s15326985ep3902_1
37. Puryear JS, Lamb KN. Defining creativity: How far have we come since Plucker, Beghetto, and Dow? Creativity Research Journal 2020; 32(3): 206–214. doi: 10.1080/10400419.2020.1821552
38. Kaufman JC, Baer J. Beyond new and appropriate: Who decides what is creative? Creativity Research Journal 2012; 24(1): 83–91. doi: 10.1080/10400419.2012.649237
39. Lan L, Kaufman JC. American and Chinese similarities and differences in defining and valuing creative products. The Journal of Creative Behaviour 2013; 46(4): 285–306. doi: 10.1002/jocb.19
40. Patston TJ, Kaufman JC, Cropley AJ, Marrone R. What is creativity in education? A qualitative study of international curricula. Journal of Advanced Academics 2021; 32(2): 207–230. doi: 10.1177/1932202X20978356
41. Runco MA, Jaeger GJ. The standard definition of creativity. Creativity Research Journal 2012; 24(1): 92–96. doi: 10.1080/10400419.2012.650092
42. Sternberg RJ. Missing links: What is missing from definitions of creativity? Journal of Creativity 2022; 32(1): 100021. doi: 10.1016/j.yjoc.2022.100021
43. Eisner EW. What can education learn from the arts about the practice of education? International Journal of Education & the Arts 2004; 5(4): 1–13.
44. Upitis R. Creativity: The State of the Domain. Measuring What Matters, People for Education; 2014.
45. Garín-Vallverdú MP, López-Fernández V, Llamas Salguero F. Creativity and multiple intelligences according to gender in primary education students. Revista Eectronica de Investigacion y Docencia Creativa 2016; 5: 33–39.
46. Fellmann F, Widmann ER. Aspects of sex differences: Social intelligence vs. creative intelligence. Advances in Anthropology 2017; 7: 298–317.
47. Zahed A, Rezaiisharif A, Shokri M. The comparison of academic engagement, emotional creativity and academic self-efficacy in gifted male and female students. Journal of Counseling Research 2019; 18(71): 100–120. doi: 10.29252/jcr.18.71.100
48. Pandey L. A Study on the influence of gender in creativity and giftedness. International Research Journal of Educational Psychology 2021; 5(2): 30–36.
49. Jackson LA, Witt EA, Games AI, et al. Information technology use and creativity: Findings from the children and technology project. Computers in Human Behavior 2012; 28(2): 370–376. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.10.006
50. Pastor BL, David LT. Relationship between creativity, intelligence and academic achievement amongst primary education students. Bulletin of Transilvania University of Brasov 2017; 10: 123–132.
51. Permatasari SDA, Budiyono, Pratiwi H. Does gender affect the mathematics creativity of junior high school students? Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2020; 1613(1): 012036. doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/1613/1/012036
52. He W, Wong W. Gender differences in the distribution of creativity scores: Domain-specific patterns in divergent thinking and creative problem solving. Frontiers in Psychology 2021; 12: 626911. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.626911
53. Nakano TDC, Oliveira KDS, Zaia P. Gender differences in creativity: A systematic literature review. Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa 2021; 37: e372116. doi: 10.1590/0102.3772e372116
54. Reilly D, Neumann DL, Andrews G. Gender differences in reading and writing achievement: Evidence from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). American Psychologist 2019; 74(4): 445–458. doi: 10.1037/amp0000356
55. Dabrowski J, Marshall TR. Motivation and Engagement in Student Assignments: The Role of Choice and Relevancy. Education Trust; 2018. pp. 1–13.
56. Dovidio JF, Piliavin JA, Schroeder DA, Penner LA. The Social Psychology of Prosocial Behavior. Psychology Press; 2006.
57. Kuśnierz C, Rogowska AM, Pavlova I. Examining gender differences, personality traits, academic performance, and motivation in Ukrainian and Polish students of physical education: A cross-cultural study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2020; 17(16): 5729. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17165729
58. Rodriguez S, Regueiro B, Piñeiro I, et al. Gender differences in mathematics motivation: Differential effects on performance in primary education. Frontiers in Psychology 2020; 10: 3050. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03050
59. Mawson C, Bodnar CA. Investigating potential gender differences in first-year engineering students’ academic motivation and homework submission behavior. In: Proceedings of the 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access; 26–29 July 2021; Online Conference.
60. Lesperance K, Hofer S, Retelsdorf J, Holzberger D. Reducing gender differences in student motivational-affective factors: A meta-analysis of school-based interventions. British Journal of Educational Psychology 2022; 92(4): 1502–1536. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12512
61. Ajlouni A, Rawadieh S, AlMahaireh A, Awwad FA. Gender differences in the motivational profile of undergraduate students in light of self-determination theory: The case of online learning setting. Journal of Social Studies Education Research 2022; 13(1): 75–103.
62. Galdi S, Cadinu M, Tomasetto C. The roots of stereotype threat: When automatic associations disrupt girls’ math performance. Child Development 2013; 85(1): 250–263. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12128
63. Bosak J, Eagly A, Diekman A, Sczesny S. Women and men of the past, present, and future: Evidence of dynamic gender stereotypes in Ghana. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 2018; 49(1): 115–129. doi: 10.1177/0022022117738750
64. Sarfo-Kantankah KS. The discursive construction of men and women in Ghanaian parliamentary discourse: A corpus-based study. Ampersand 2021; 8: 100079. doi: 10.1016/j.amper.2021.100079
65. Sikweyiya Y, Addo-Lartey AA, Alangea DO, et al. Patriarchy and gender-inequitable attitudes as drivers of intimate partner violence against women in the central region of Ghana. BMC Public Health 2020; 20: 682. doi: 10.1186/s12889-020-08825-z
66. Kaufman JC. Counting the muses: Development of the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale (K-DOCS). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 2012; 6(4): 298–308. doi: 10.1037/a0029751
67. Vallerand RJ, Pelletier LG, Blais MR, et al. The academic motivation scale: A measure of intrinsic, extrinsic, and amotivation in education. Educational and Psychological Measurement 1992; 52(4): 1003–1017. doi: 10.1177/0013164492052004025
68. Hair JF, Hult GTM, Ringle CM, et al. Mirror, mirror on the wall: A comparative evaluation of composite-based structural equation modeling methods. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 2017; 45: 616–632. doi: 10.1007/s11747-017-0517-x
69. Tabachnick BG, Fidell LS. Using Multivariate Statistics. Pearson; 2013.
70. Pallant J. SPSS Survival Manual—A Step by Step Guide to Data Analysis Using IBM SPSS. Routledge; 2020.
71. Narayanan R, Rajasekaran NN, Iyyappan S. Do female students have higher motivation than male students in learning of English at the tertiary level? e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership 2007; 9(2): 22–28.
72. Yau H, Kan M, Cheng Alison L. The impact of curiosity and external regulation on intrinsic motivation: An empirical study in Hong Kong education. Psychology Research 2012; 2(5): 295–307. doi: 10.17265/2159-5542/2012.05.003
73. Singh SK. Curiosity among school going students. The International Journal of Indian Psychology 2015; 2(3): 17–22. doi: 10.25215/0203.079
74. Eren A, Coskun H. Students’ level of boredom, boredom coping strategies, epistemic curiosity, and graded performance. The Journal of Educational Research 2016; 109(6): 574–588. doi: 10.1080/00220671.2014.999364
75. Okere MI, Ndeke GCW. Influence of gender and knowledge on secondary school students’ scientific creativity skills in Nakuru District, Kenya. European Journal of Educational Research 2012; 1(4): 353–366. doi: 10.12973/eu-jer.1.4.353
76. Zhao Y, Shen WB, Shi CH, Li MC. The influence of gender and scientific program experience on postgraduates’ creativity. In: Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Medical Science and Human Health (MSHH 2017); 18–23 June 2017; Suzhou, China. pp. 285–292.
77. Kamonjo F, Wachanga S. Creativity level in chemistry education by gender among secondary school students in Kenya. Journal of Education and Practice 2019; 10(20): 50–60. doi: 10.7176/JEP/10-20-07
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59400/apr.v1i1.269
(122 Abstract Views, 49 PDF Downloads)
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2023 Inuusah Mahama, Veronica Esinam Eggley, Rabbi Abu-Sadat, Benjamin Abass Ayimbire
This site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.