Gender differences in achievement motivation : grade and cultural considerations

Research on gender issues in achievement motivation has often yielded conflicting results. Whereas boys seem to have a higher sense of competence and girls seem to have higher interest in school work, gender differences tend to be small and inconsistent across curriculum areas. Gender patterns also vary from culture to culture and in different grade levels. Using a sample of Australian students from six primary schools, the study reported here examined gender differences in four motivation constructs (mastery goal, value of schooling, sense of competence, and affect to learning). Analysis of variance was conducted to test gender and grade differences for Anglo and Asian Australians’ construct scores. More culture differences than gender differences were found with this sample. For Anglo-Australians, girls were found to display higher scores compared to boys in all four constructs irrespective of grade. For Asian-Australians, boys were higher in all four construct scores compared to girls in third grade but the disadvantage of boys disappeared thereafter. The inconsistent gender patterns found in different grade levels and different cultures call for the consideration of background variables such as culture, grade level, school setting, and curriculum focus when examining students’ gender differences in achievement motivation.