Effect of Gender on Academic Achievement in Algebraic Expression Concept among Federal Colleges of Education Students in South-west, Nigeria

Abstract Students’ achievement in Algebraic expressions over the years have not been encouraging as a concept under Basic General Mathematics II course for students in all Federal Colleges of Education, Nigeria. This may be due to so many factors like large class-size, crowded classrooms, misinterpretation of word problems, gender differences, teaching methodologies employed by the lecturers and other factors. Many scholars had worked on these variables but not many investigated effects of gender on Federal Colleges of Education students’ academic achievement in Algebraic expressions in Southwest, Nigeria. Social Learning and Lev Vygotsky’s were used for this study. Mixed method which involves quasi-experimental design was used. The population for the study comprised all the 100 level Students in Federal Colleges of Education Southwest, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the participants for the study. Two research instruments were used: Basic General Mathematics Students’ Academic Achievement Test (BGMSAAT), and a Lesson Plan Format (LPF). One hypothesis was formulated and tested using Analysis of Covariance at a 0.05 level of significance. The result shown that: Most of the participants were females, numbers of the participants varied under each group because they were randomly sampled from each of the three Federal Colleges of Education selected, the contributing effect of gender on students’ academic achievement in Algebraic expressions was found to be 0.3%; It was concluded that gender as a factor independently and significantly does not affect the students’ academic achievement in Algebraic expressions in Federal Colleges of Education, Southwest Nigeria. It was recommended among others that Federal Colleges of Education Southwest, Nigeria should continue to adopt gender-neutral teaching approaches, ensuring that both male and female students are equally supported in the teaching and learning of Algebraic expressions. Keywords: Gender, Algebraic expressions and students’ academic achievement