Academic Achievement Test in English and Mathematics of Secondary School Students in relation to Gender Differences

The present research study aims to examine the academic achievement of secondary school students in relation to gender differences. The study was carried out on a sample of 100 male and female students studying in class IX th of Aligarh District, U.P. India. Two self developed tools were applied which finally analysed by applying Mean, SD, t-Test and Pearson‟s Coefficient Correlation (r). Results revealed a significant difference between male and female students in English achievement scores and also no significant difference was found between English and Mathematics achievement scores of IX th grade male students. Results also revealed low positive correlation between English and Mathematics achievement of male students of IX th grade and moderate positive correlation between English and Mathematics achievement of female students of IX th grade. The results suggested to the need of motivation and encouragement for enhancing academic achievement scores of male and female students.

carried out a Meta analysis on Mathematics performance with reference to gender differences, and concluded that no gender difference was found in problem solving at elementary or middle school level. A small Gender differences in Mathematics performance were found. Neog (1990) studied about personality characteristics of students in relation to over achievement of in English and Mathematics. Results revealed that women stood on as over achievers in English with the personality characteristics of less intelligent, emotional less stable, less enthusiastic, less adventurous, socially group dependent than the over achievers in Mathematics. Under achievers in English were found more prove to tender mindedness, apprehensive and controlled than the under achievers in English.
Besides above discussed studies, such study like, Bag, Anjali (1990) reported boys showed more proficiency in English usage than girls, Jha (1992) found positive significant correlation between proper attitude of middle school students towards English and Mathematics, Ewers et.al (1993) concluded that male showed more self-efficacy strength for Mathematics task than shown by female counterparts, Skaavik and Ran Kin (1994) reported no significant difference between the sexes in Mathematics achievement, Royer et.al (1999) found no gender difference on simple mathematical retrieval task, Rehman (2003) concluded that a significant difference male and female students in Mathematics achievement, Anjum (2007) found significant difference between academic achievements of high school over and under achiever girls in Mathematics were also tried to study the gender differences in the achievement of Mathematics and English with different dimensions. However, a complete research gap has been marked in relation to the study of gender differences in English and Mathematic achievement of IX the grade students.

DEFINITIONS OF KEY TERMS English
The term English means when it is used as noun (with a plural verb) when it is used as adjective it can be understood as characteristics or culture of England or of its people. When we go into the origin of English we can derive it from England, one would think. But in fact the language name is found long before the country name. However, here English is considered as a school subject.

Mathematics
According to various definitions, Mathematics is the science of numbers and their operations, interrelations, combinations, generalizations and abstractions and of space configurations and their structure, measurement, transformation and generalization. According to science dictionary, "Mathematics is the science of measurement, relationship, and properties of quantities and sets using numbers and symbols." Gender Differences A gender difference is a distinction of biological and/or physiological characteristics typically associated with either male or female or species in general. While the social sciences sometimes approaches gender as a social construct and gender studies particularly do , research in the natural sciences investigates whether biological differences in males and females influences the development of gender in humans. Gender is the characteristics, whether biological or socially influenced, by which people define male and female.

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Academic achievement is the performance in academic subjects or the performance in a particular course by academic achievement; we mean the performance of a learner after course of instructions and measure in terms of masks and grades obtained in a given area of knowledge or skills acquired after undergoing a program of instruction. According to C.V. Good (1973). "Academic achievement is the knowledge attained or skill developed in the school subjects usually designed by test scores are makes assigned by Teacher, or both".

VARIABLES IN THE PRESENT STUDY
Dependent Variable: Academic Achievement of English and Mathematics Independent Variable: Gender (Male & Female)

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this research project is to find out the Achievement of IXth grade students in English and Mathematics and to investigate whether there is any difference between male and female students in achievement in English and Mathematics of IX th grade students. The objectives of the study are: 1. To see the difference in English achievement between male and female of IX th grade students.

2.
To see the difference in Mathematics achievement between male and female of IXth grade students.

3.
To see the difference in English and Mathematics achievement of male of IX th grade students.

4.
To see the difference in English and Mathematics achievement of female of IX th grade students.

5.
To see the relation in English and Mathematics of male of IX th grade students.

6.
To see the relation in English and Mathematics of female of IX th grade students.

HYPOTHESES OF STUDY
In the present study the hypotheses have been formulated in a null form. The confidence level for the purpose of excepting or rejecting the hypothesis in the study 0.05, 0.01 and 0.10 levels keeping in view the objective of the study , the following research hypothesis has been formulated and to be tested against the empirical data. 1.
There is no significant difference in English achievement of male and female IXth grade students.

2.
There is no significant difference in Mathematics achievement of male and female of IX th grade students.

3.
There is no significant difference in English and Mathematics achievement of male of IX th grade students.

4.
There is no significant difference in English and Mathematics achievement of female of IX th grade students.

5.
There is no relation in English and Mathematics of male of IX th grade students. 6.
There is no relation in English and Mathematics of female of IX th grade students.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The limitations of study are as follows: 1. The study is conducted only on 100 students of two A.M.U"s Secondary Schools.
One cannot generalise this research to the whole country because of the difference in condition and circumstances. 2. Though various statistical techniques could have been used for analysis of the data but due to lack of time, t-test and product moment correlation coefficient(r) are used. 3. The results that may have been reported reflect merely what students" achievement in English and Mathematics in schools of (A.M.U.) and the findings may be quite different at another time or in other cultural setting. 4. The data obtained and findings reported concerning achievement of students do not indicate what "ought to be" nor do they simply" what has been found" is best and true once and for all. 5. The generalization of the findings of this study is limited to secondary schools of A.M.U. Aligarh, U.P. India.

METHOD
The present study is descriptive in nature. The researcher has adopted survey method to carry out the study. The school survey is the comprehensive study of existing conditions of the school.

Population and Sample
The sample of the study consists of 100 students and was selected from two schools of AMU, districts Aligarh, U.P. India. Out of 100 students of IX th grade, there were 50 boys and 50 girls.

Tools Used in the Study
In order to meet the objectives of the study, following tools were used: 1. English Achievement Test for IX th grade students. 2. Mathematics Achievement Test for IX th grade students.
Above mentioned both tests are constructed by the researcher to test the achievement in English and Mathematics. Each test is consisted of 20 objectives type questions of the concerned disciplines. Summation of marks or scores achieved by the students in all the questions was considered as his or her achievement scores in both subjects. The scoring was done on the basis of responses of the students on the every items of the each scale and score 1 was awarded on each correct answer and 0 for wrong option, the securing maximum score 20 and minimum of 0 on each scale.

Academic Achievement Test in English and Mathematics of Secondary School Students in relation to
Gender Differences © The International Journal of Indian Psychology | 160

Statistical Techniques Used
The analysis of data is done by using the following statistical techniques: Means, Standard deviation (SD), Standard error of the mean (SEM), Standard error of the difference between two means (SED), t-Test (to see the significance of the difference between two means), Correlation (r) {to see the relationship in the academic achievement score of English and Mathematics}. The total number of male and female students of IX th grade was 50 each as indicated by table 1 The mean Mathematics achievement score of male student is 16.36 and SD=0.99. In case of female students the mean Mathematics achievement scores is 15.0 and standard deviation SD is zero. The statistically calculated value of t is 3.68 which is significant at 0.01 level with 98df. The result clearly indicates that there is difference between mean scores of Mathematics of male and female students of IX th grades. The male student had shown significantly higher performance in Mathematics than their female counterpart. Therefore, the second hypothesis that "there is no significant difference between male and female student in Mathematics achievement of IX th grade students" is rejected at 0.01 levels. The graphical representation of mean achievement score in Mathematics of male and female students of IX th grade. It is evident from the table 2 that the number of male students of IX th grade in subject English and Mathematics was 50 each. The mean Mathematics achievement score of male student is 16.36 and SD=0.99. In case of English subject the mean achievement scores is 15.92 and standard deviation SD=3.08. The statistically calculated value of t is 0.58 which is not significant with 98df. The result clearly indicates that there is no significant difference between Mathematics achievement score and English achievement score of IX th grades male students.

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA
The male student of IX th class had shown equal performance in Mathematics and English. So the third hypothesis stating that "there is no significant difference between Mathematics achievement and English achievement scores of IX th grades male students" is accepted with 98df. It is evident from the table 3 that the number of female students of IX th grade in subject English and Mathematics was 50 each. The mean Mathematics achievement score of female student of IX th standard is 15 and SD=0.0. In case of English subject the mean achievement scores is 13.62 and standard deviation SD=3.20. The statistically calculated value of t is 3.06 which are significant at level 0.01 with 98df. The result clearly indicates that there is significant difference between Mathematics achievement score and English achievement score of IX th grades female students. The female student of IX th class had shown significantly higher performance in Mathematics than English. So the fourth hypothesis stating that "there is no significant difference between Mathematics achievement and English achievement scores of IX th grades female students" is rejected at 0.01 levels as 98df. It is depicted from table 4 that the number of male students of IX th grade in subject English and Mathematics was 50 each. The mean Mathematics achievement score of IX grade male student is 16.36 and SD=0.99. In case of English subject the mean achievement scores is 15.92 and standard deviation SD=3.08. The statistically calculated value of coefficient of correlation (r) =0.211. It is being revealed that there is a low positive correlation between Mathematics and English achievement of IX th grades male students. So the fifth hypothesis stating that "there is no correlation between Mathematics achievement and English achievement scores of IX th grades male students" is rejected. It is depicted from table 5 that the number of female students of IX th grade in subject English and Mathematics was 50 each. The mean Mathematics achievement score of IX th grade female student is 15.0 and SD=0.0. In case of English subject the mean achievement scores is 13.62 and standard deviation SD=3.20. The statistically calculated value of coefficient of correlation (r) =0.45. it is being revealed that there is a moderate positive correlation between Mathematics and English achievement of IX th grades female students. So the fifth hypothesis stating that "there is no correlation between Mathematics achievement and English achievement scores of IX th grades female students" is rejected at 0.01 level of significance.

MAJOR FINDINGS
On the basis of t-test and product moment correlation coefficient (r) applied to investigate gender basis difference in mean English and Mathematics scores of IX th grade students, the following major findings are derived as.
1. There exists a significant difference between male and female students in English achievement scores. The male students have more academic achievement in English than their female counterpart. 2. There exists a significant difference between male and female students in Mathematics achievement scores. The male students have more academic achievement in English than their female counterpart. 3. There does not exist significant difference between English and Mathematics achievement scores of IX th grade male students. The male student of IX th class had shown equal performance in English and Mathematics. 4. There exists a significant difference in English and Mathematics achievement scores of IX th grade female students. The female student of IX th class had shown more academic achievement in Mathematics than English. 5. There exist low positive correlation between English and Mathematics achievement of male students of IX th grade. 6. There exist moderate positive correlation between English and Mathematics achievement of female students of IX th grade.

DISCUSSION
The finding of present study clearly shows that performance of the students both in English and Mathematics is found to be good. The mean achievement in combined English and Mathematics of male student was 16.14 and for girls 14.31 out of maximum score of 20.In term of percentage the mean achievement scores for boys was 80% and for girls was 71.11%. Thus the performance of students in English and Mathematics is found to be good. This result is different with the finding of Prakash and Pandey (1996), who also reported that the performance of students in both Mathematics and language in primary schools was low. It was also found that at secondary level in subjects English and Mathematics, male students have significantly higher mean achievement scores in English as well as Mathematics than their female counterparts. Kulkarni (1970), reported boys had higher achievement level than the girls in Mathematics at primary, middle and secondary stage, in as many as 15 states. Friedman (1989) concluded the study that the gender gap favouring boys were common in high school. Dossey , et.al. (1988) conducted a study with 17 years old student and found out performance girls. Campbell (1991) conducted a study and found female scored low.

EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
The present study has come with that male students are performing better in mathematics and English than their female counterparts. The study also revealed that lack of motivation and low expectation of female students may be the cause of being trailed to male students. Thus, there is need to focus on the overall teaching learning environment of schools. Teachers, who are accorded as the leader of the class room teaching, should take this responsibility and should also encourage and motivate both boys and girls to excel in the academic arena. So the findings of the study would definitely help in to chalk out the plan, related to the improvement of academic achievement of male and female.

SUGGESTIONS FURTHER RESEARCH
Some of these research problems related to this area are given below and may be taken by researchers in future. 1. Student"s socio-economic status and their achievement in English and Mathematics. 2. Student"s personal factor and achievement in English and Mathematics. 3. Effects of parent"s education and occupation on their achievement in English and Mathematics. 4. Gifted and non-gifted children and their achievement in English and Mathematics. 5. Creative and non-creative children and their achievement in English and Mathematics. 6. Influence of class size on their achievement in English and Mathematics. 7. Gender gap linked to differential socialization for high achieving English and Mathematics students. 8. Influence of classroom climate on achievement in English and Mathematics. 9. Socio economic and gender effects on in English and Mathematics achievement. 10. School effectiveness on in English and Mathematics achievement.

CONCLUSION
The good performance of the students in general at secondary level is indicative of either good environment of English and Mathematics or the students belong to medium social strata of the population, in terms of economic condition and education.