Gender Streaming and Secondary School Female Students’ Performance in English Language in Niger State, Nigeria

This study investigated the effect of gender streaming on the performance of senior secondary school level students in English language in Niger State. In the course of the work, the researcher compared the performance of female students in the single and mixed-gender streams in English Language. The population of the study was 53,468 from 248 schools of both single and mixed gender streams. Out of this, one single-gender female class of forty-seven and one mixed-gender class of eleven female students were sampled from senior secondary schools in Minna metropolis. The researcher used quasi-experimental research design. The instruments used for data collection were the NECO 2011 November/December past question papers that served as the test instruments, the curriculum content and prepared lesson notes used during treatment. Frequency counts and the Arithmetic means were used for descriptive analysis. The t-test statistical technique was used for inferential analysis to test the hypotheses. This study is anchored on Bandura (1986)’s social learning theory since it emphasises the importance of biological, social and cultural impacts on human behavioural development and learning especially on gender and genders specific traits and roles. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between the performance of single and mixed-gender female students in post test. Equally too, the single-gendered female students performed better than the mixed-gender female ones and the results of the single-gender female students were generally encouraging while that of mixed gender female students was very poor. It was therefore, concluded that the single-gender streaming was effective in enhancing better academic performance for female students especially in English language in Niger State. Consequently, the researcher recommends that the Niger State Government encourages the single-gender stream system through a vibrant, viable and feasible policy with workable implementation strategy.

This study investigated the effect of gender streaming on the performance of senior secondary school level students in English language in Niger State. In the course of the work, the researcher compared the performance of female students in the single and mixed-gender streams in English Language. The population of the study was 53,468 from 248 schools of both single and mixed gender streams. Out of this, one single-gender female class of forty-seven and one mixed-gender class of eleven female students were sampled from senior secondary schools in Minna metropolis. The researcher used quasi-experimental research design. The instruments used for data collection were the NECO 2011 November/December past question papers that served as the test instruments, the curriculum content and prepared lesson notes used during treatment. Frequency counts and the Arithmetic means were used for descriptive analysis. The t-test statistical technique was used for inferential analysis to test the hypotheses. This study is anchored on Bandura (1986)’s social learning theory since it emphasises the importance of biological, social and cultural impacts on human behavioural development and learning especially on gender and genders specific traits and roles. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between the performance of single and mixed-gender female students in post test. Equally too, the single-gendered female students performed better than the mixed-gender female ones and the results of the single-gender female students were generally encouraging while that of mixed gender female students was very poor. It was therefore, concluded that the single-gender streaming was effective in enhancing better academic performance for female students especially in English language in Niger State. Consequently, the researcher recommends that the Niger State Government encourages the single-gender stream system through a vibrant, viable and feasible policy with workable implementation strategy.