A comparative study of the impact on academic and psychosocial development of eighth-grade students involved in single-gender versus co-educational classroom setting

Parents of eighth grade students within a single public education middle school setting were given the option of enrolling their student in single gender or coeducational classes for their four core classes: English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. There were fifty-four boys involved in the study. Twenty-one boys were in the treatment group, assigned to single gender classes, while twenty boys in the control group were assigned to coeducational classes. There were seventy-three girls who participated; thirty of whom were in the treatment group and twenty-nine in the control group. Measures of both academic and psychosocial growth were taken to determine the impact of either classroom design. Academically, students were measured according to their earned grades in their core classes, their STAR Reading assessment scores, and teacher-generated district common assessments in the core academic areas. The psychosocial indicators included student attendance, discipline interventions, and scores on the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, 2nd Edition (PHCSCS-2). Pre-test and post-test scores were measured using descriptive and inferential statistics. Using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), the statistical significance of the sum of the individual student's pre-test and post-test difference scores were measured at the 0.05 alpha level. There were five academic dependent variables that were statistically significant: English grades for the control groups and the control girls were greater than the treatment groups; Math common assessment scores were greater for the control groups and the control boys; and Science common assessment scores were greater for the control girls. In each of these areas, the control outperformed the treatment group. There were two psychosocial dependent variables that were statistically significant. In both areas, the treatment group outperformed the control group. The PHCSCS-2 Physical Appearance and Attribute domain measured a greater difference for the treatment groups and the treatment boys. The impact of single-gender education as public education policy requires further study as to its efficacy.