Comparative Study of the Academic Performances in Biology, Chemistry and Physics of Male and Female Students in a Nigerian Tertiary Institution

Abstract

The study examines the academic performance of students in Biology, chemistry and physics in relation to their gender effect among the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) students of Federal College of Education, Zaria,Kaduna State, Nigeria. A total of 2,884 students comprising 1,349 males and 1,105 females registered in 2009/2010, 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 academic sessions were used for the study. The study adapts an ex-post-facto research design to analyze existing data without any manipulation. The study also used the final cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of students’ examination results in 2011/2011, 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 respectively, obtained from the examination officers of each department for the analysis. Descriptive, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent t-test statistics were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 levels of significance. The findings of the study revealed that there was no significant difference between the academic performance of students in Biology, Chemistry, Physics and overall science in the studied period except in Biology 2011/2012 session. There was also no gender disparity in the students’ performance in all the subjects and overall science. It was recommended among others that admission of students into Colleges of Education and other Nigerian tertiary institutions should be done without gender bias.

Keywords: Effect, Gender, Academic performance, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, College of Education.