Gender Issues in Classroom Interaction and Students’ Achievement in Social Studies

This study examined gender issues in secondary school students’ participation in classroom interactions and their achievement in social studies in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Descriptive design of the survey type was adopted for the study. The sample consisted of 1500 JSS 2 Social Studies students. Multistage and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the sample. Two instruments used for this work were observational instrument titled Classroom Interaction Analysis Categories (CIAC) and Social Studies Achievement Test (SSAT). The CIAC was an adapted version of Flanders (1970) while the SSAT was a self-constructed test designed to measure students’ achievement. Test-retest technique was used to determine reliability of the instruments. Data collected were subjected to hypotheses testing using student t-test at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed a significant difference between the level of participation of male and female students in classroom interactions and that the difference between the achievement of male and female students in Social Studies was significant. Based on these findings, it was recommended that teachers should ask higher order questions, initiate interactions and distribute questions evenly in order to encourage equal participation of the two sexes in classroom interactions.