Gender Similarities in the Mathematical Performance of Early School-Age Children

Abstract

The role of gender in mathematical abilities has caught the interest of researchers for several decades; however, their findings are not conclusive yet. Recently the need to explore its influence on the development of some foundational mathematic skills has been highlighted. Thus, the current study examined whether gender differentially affects young children’s performance in several basic numeracy skills, using a complex developmentally appropriate assessment that included not only standard curriculum-based measures, but also a non-routine task which required abstract thinking. Further, 136 children (68 girls) aged 6 to 8 years old completed: (a) the third edition of the standardized Test of Early Mathematical Ability (TEMA-3) to measure their mathematical knowledge; (b) the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT), and (c) a non-routine counting detection task where children watched several characters performing different counts, had to judge their correctness, and justify their answers. Furthermore, frequentist and Bayesian analyses were combined to quantify the evidence of the null (gender similarities) and the alternative (gender differences) hypothesis. The overall results indicated the irrelevance or non-existence of gender differences in most of the measures used, including children’s performance in the non-routine counting task. This would support the gender similarity hypothesis in the basic numerical skills assessed.