Abstract—Mathematics learning and teaching is an area of interest to the teaching community in first year higher education and enabling programs due to the large gap of expected mathematics knowledge and the actual mathematics abilities of students in these programs with the goal of find solutions to bridge the gap of knowledge so that students can meet the expected knowledge required in a degree program of their choice. One of the factors of interest in the research community is the impact of gender on mathematics learning. This study investigates if there is a gender difference in terms of enabling students’ mathematics achievement and affective factors related to mathematics, particularly, their self-efficacy, active learning strategies, perceived usefulness of mathematics, perception on learning environment that have an impact to their mathematics learning, achievement-oriented goals, enjoyment of mathematics, and mathematics anxiety based on a sample of 507 students undertaking an enabling program at a university in South Australia. Results indicated that male and female students’ achievement in mathematics are statistically and significantly similar but male students scored higher in self-efficacy and enjoyment of learning mathematics while female students scored higher in mathematics anxiety. A discussion of the results and its implications are also presented.
Index Terms—Affective factors, mathematics learning, achievements, gender, enabling program.
P. F. Ng is with University of South Australia, Adelaide South Australia 5001, Australia (e-mail: Jasmine.Ng@unisa.edu.au).
K. Teoh is with Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia 5043, Australia (e-mail: teoh0036@flinders.edu.au).
Cite: Pek Foong Ng and Kung-Keat Teoh, "Gender Differences and Affective Factors Influencing Mathematics Learning Success in an Enabling Program," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 306-309, 2019.