One extensive study, Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) [ed.: thanks to Charles for the link], was done by Tom Carpenter, me, and several others (Fennema, Carpenter, Jacobs, Franke, & Levi, 1998). In a 3-year longitudinal study we studied teachers and their students as they progressed from Grade 1 through Grade 3 (Fennema, Carpenter, et al., 1998). Once or twice each year, children who had learned their mathematics in CGI classrooms, were asked to solve a variety of problems (number facts, addition/subtraction word problems, non-routine, and extension problems) and to report how they solved the problems. We found no gender differences in correctly solving number fact, addition/subtraction, or non-routine problems throughout the three years of the study. This finding was in agreement with literature where it has been widely reported, as well as believed, that gender differences do not emerge until early adolescence. In our study, however, each year from Grade 1 to Grade 3 we found strong and consistent gender differences in the strategies used to solve problems, with girls tending to use more concrete strategies like modeling and counting and boys tending to use more abstract strategies that reflect conceptual understanding. In other words, the mental processing of boys and girls were different, and we also found some significant achievement differences in solving extension problems.

By the end of the third grade, the girls used more standard algorithms than did the boys. On the problems that required flexibility in extending one’s problem solving procedures, boys were more successful than were girls. The ability to solve the extension problems in the third grade appeared to be related to the use of invented rather than procedural algorithms in earlier grades, as both girls and boys who had used invented algorithms early were better able to solve the extension problems than those who had not.

Boys do worse in all the small-group collaborative problem-solving confabs, but end up with admirably extended problem solving procedures in the 3rd grade anyway, while the girls are busy Following the Rules CGI was attempting to teach them to ignore.....6 of one, half dozen of the other.

I guess.

I haven't read either of Fennema's papers, but I've added them to The List.








USA Today report on 135:100 boys:girls ratio in college
sexism in Everyday Math
invisible boys
boy trouble (New Republic on boys)
slacker boys, middle school, & forbidden positive images of boys in textbooks
throw rocks at them
please remain seated at all times
Ann Althouse thread sums up classroom change
cooperative vs. competitive learning
the girl show (8th grade graduation awards)
the boy show (character ed)
the other boy show
Where the Boys Aren't

letter from Robert Lerner, former commissioner NCES
Tom Mortenson's research
The Boys Project board
for every 100 girls —


-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

Back to main page.