Presenter Information

Lacy Cook, Tyler Junior College

Start Date

16-4-2019 4:00 PM

End Date

16-4-2019 7:30 PM

Description

We analyzed data collected from 35 Tyler Junior College Students collected over three testing sessions. Students were asked to take a five-question math test. The test included four questions from the American High School Math Examination, where the problems are designed to be solvable for students without any upper level (calculus) mathematics background as well as one randomly generated question. Students were asked to take as much time as they needed, but no longer than one hour to complete the test. We used the amount of time spent on the test to measure the students' level of determination. The goal of this trial was to identify whether there was a difference between the two genders when it came to persistence. We found that there was little statistical difference when examining the data we collected. There was a strong overlap in times for females and males, so despite the samples mean persistence times being different, evidence suggests that it is possible that the mean persistence times could be equal. With a null hypothesis of the mean persistence times being equal, we were unable to reject the null hypothesis that men and women would have equal persistence times. This might be a result of the small sample size. The implication is that if there is a difference in persistence times, different approaches for teaching students in mathematics would be beneficial.

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Faculty Sponsor: Chris Chappa (Tyler Junior College)

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Apr 16th, 4:00 PM Apr 16th, 7:30 PM

Determination Differences Between Men and Women in Mathematics

We analyzed data collected from 35 Tyler Junior College Students collected over three testing sessions. Students were asked to take a five-question math test. The test included four questions from the American High School Math Examination, where the problems are designed to be solvable for students without any upper level (calculus) mathematics background as well as one randomly generated question. Students were asked to take as much time as they needed, but no longer than one hour to complete the test. We used the amount of time spent on the test to measure the students' level of determination. The goal of this trial was to identify whether there was a difference between the two genders when it came to persistence. We found that there was little statistical difference when examining the data we collected. There was a strong overlap in times for females and males, so despite the samples mean persistence times being different, evidence suggests that it is possible that the mean persistence times could be equal. With a null hypothesis of the mean persistence times being equal, we were unable to reject the null hypothesis that men and women would have equal persistence times. This might be a result of the small sample size. The implication is that if there is a difference in persistence times, different approaches for teaching students in mathematics would be beneficial.

 

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