structural equation modeling
1 Acknowledgement:
The authors would like to thank National Science Council of Taiwan, Republic of China, for the grant support under the contract NSC-96-2522-S-004-001-MY2.
Sex difference
Introduction
1980's, Taiwan rises a “the modern woman movement”, inspiring the contemporary woman's rights consciousness of the Taiwan and also arousing the current thought of the female doctrine. The civil society represented the group “the new women information foundation”, carried out a big check-up of the national textbook in 1988, then found that the chances of the female names shown-up in diagram and text were always less than male, and the contents were filled with the concepts about the sex stereotype and sex bias. From then on, the female's working position and capability began to be treated, valuated, and imposed as equally as male.
Up to 1990's, the government announces the educational reform of “Nine-Year Educational Program Reform” and “Ten Basic Skills Competency”, among them, the
“sex equality" subject also becomes one of the major curriculum issue that integrated into the teaching. At that mean time, Huang (1995) found that the trend of sex
difference in ability was gradually shrunk in recent years which showing that the important factors of social structure and the education experience. However, more than a decade of educational reform pass by, there seemed exited the “sex difference”
problem up to now (2007) per se. (i.e., Maccoby & Jacklin (1974) collected about 1500 research cases that have something to do with the sex difference and finished a book for “The Psychology of Sex Difference” which pointed out the men and women's difference were mainly in the language competence, mathematics, vision and space ability, and offensiveness etc.). Whether the “sex equality" subject was still remained in current thought of society? How to remove it gradually? This topic deserved to be concerned and went deep into research once more.
However, the various statistics of the Ministry of Education indicated that the trend of higher-level male manpower were more than those of higher-level female
Sex difference
manpower; in department choice, the male was apt to choose the science or engineering, and the female was cline to choose the liberal arts, business, family affairs or medical science; and on the amount of scientist and engineers, although the trend was little to decline, there still exited the male student enrolments were more than those of female student enrolments. Therefore, if we could encourage more female students to devote to the higher-level manpower cultivation, particularly in mathematics, science, and engineering fields, it would likely to be a valid policy for the promotion of the national competition power. This subject not only deserved to be concerned, but also needed to go deeply into study once more.
According to the domestic well-known scholar, professor Young (1996), had conducted a serial researches on the topic of “sex difference in science learning interest” and published a book of “The analysis of differences in learning interests of males and females”. In that book, he mentioned the current status of the male and
female students’ difference in science learning interest: (1) On the scientific knowledge: the boy had more interest than the girl, the boy preferred the physical science, and the girl love the biology science. (2) On the attitude of learning science:
the boy was more active than the girl, the boy's attitude was clinked to the physics science, and the girl's attitude was head for the biology science; (3) On the attitude of loving science lessons: the boy's attitude is more active than the girl; (4) On the science lessons selection: the amount of the boy were more than the girl, the boy inclined to the physical science, and the girl inclined to the biology science; and (5) On the science career aspiration: the boy had more interest than the girl, the boy inclined to the material science, and the girl inclined to the life science. And what were the major factors that caused the male and female students difference in science learning interest? There might be existed some reasons such as: the learning attitude,
Sex difference
achievement, course content knowledge, the education environment, social culture, family cultivation factor etc. There seemed to be concluded as a core factor: “sex role”. That is to say, the science curriculum, the scientist’s personality, the science workload, and the scientist image etc., all were thought to be the category that belonged to the “male” image. This kind of stereotype of “sex role” would cause parents, teachers, social cultural environment, and even the female student herself to think as the “science was belonged to the male’s domain”. It would not be suitable for the female student to learn. And hence, the sex difference in learning science was manifested at the professor Young’s work.
Therefore, since the educational reform act started in 1995, the concepts of
“female doctrine” and “sex equality” became popular and gradual implementation in people’s mind. Up to now, more than ten years pass by, were there still existed the
“sex difference” in science education? This was a valuable topic that deserved to be re-checked. On one hand, it could examine whether the “sex equality” in educational reform was carried out or not? On the other hand, it needed to check whether there still existed the “sex difference” phenomenon in science learning achievement or not with a more cautiously scientific way? In the meantime, could we also make use of the objective data from the international evaluation to examine the experience of other countries and to see how did we make profit form it or not? Any various questions and curiosity arouse the researcher’s strong interest and motive to a glimpse of the fact why actually and exactly should be? Therefore, then would have this research to be proposed!
Sex difference
Method
This research proposes two questions that needed to be answered as follows:
1. From TIMSS 1999 to TIMSS 2003, what was the development trend of the mathematics and science achievement of fourth-grade and eight-grade male and female students in Taiwan? Were there existed the sex differences?
2. From TIMSS 1999 to TIMSS 2003, what was the main factor that had impact on the mathematics and science achievement and learning interest of fourth-grade and eight-grade male and female students in Taiwan? Were there existed the sex
differences?
The data analyzed in this research was drawn from the public archival dataset of Trend of International Mathematic and Science Survey (TIMSS) which was generated and maintained by IEA. The index and raw data used in this TIMSS were all public message. The candor and objectivity of the data source, with the referenced value was without a doubt. Such data were used in this research to carry out a secondary data analysis. The data retrieve information was: http: / /timss.bc.edu/timss2003.html.
Then, to answer the above two research questions, the stepwise multiple
regression analysis, product moment correlation analysis, and t test was carried out to do a secondary data analysis.
Sex difference