Gender differences in growth in mathematics achievement: Three-level longitudinal and multilevel analyses of individual, home, and school influences

This study focused on gender differences in growth in mathematics achievement in relation to various social-psychological factors, such as attitude toward mathematics, self-esteem, parents' academic encouragement, mathematics teachers' expectations, peer influence, and so on. The study was based primarily upon the data collected by the Longitudinal Study of American Youth---a national study of the development of attitudes toward and competence in mathematics and science among middle school and high school students. The key methodology used in the study was a 3-level longitudinal and multilevel model. The analysis was first conducted separately for boys and girls who started low and high, and then combined boys and girls in the low and high groups. Results indicated that gender differences in growth in mathematics varied by one's initial status. For those who started low, girls started higher than boys, but their growth rates were slightly lower than boys'. Although the average gender gap in growth rates was not statistically significant, the gap varied across schools. In some schools girls' growth rates were higher, while in other schools boys' growth rates were higher. For those who started high, there were no gender differences in initial status and growth rates. However, the effect of math attitude and math teacher push upon mathematics differed for boys and girls who started high. The effect of math attitude upon mathematics was stronger for boys than for girls. The effect of math teacher push upon mathematics varied across schools for boys, but no math teacher push effect was found for girls. Results also showed that home resources, individual behavior problems, and attitude towards mathematics were related to growth in mathematics. In addition, aggregated school resources had a significant effect upon growth in mathematics. The effect of math teacher push upon mathematics varied across schools for those who started low as for boys who started high. The overall conclusion was that between gender differences in mathematics from grade 7 to grade 10 were much smaller than within gender differences for the sample involved in this study.