Gender similarities in language learning preferences among Indian and Omani school students in Oman: implications for gender-equitable education and sustainable development

Abstract Claims that girls and boys learn in different ways remain common in classrooms and teacher education, and cross-national studies are often cited as showing that such differences depend on culture. Few such studies, however, test the Culture × Gender interaction directly or check whether survey artefacts could explain apparent differences. This study compared self-reported language learning style preferences of upper-secondary English learners in Indian-curriculum schools and Omani private schools in Oman using the 110-item Learning Style Survey. After duplicate online submissions were removed, the analytic sample comprised 400 students. Two-way analyses of variance with false-discovery-rate correction, multivariate tests, Bayes factors and within-person standardisation for response style were applied to all 23 subscales. No Culture × Gender interaction was detected on any subscale or in the multivariate test, and Bayes factors favoured the absence of an interaction on every subscale (BF₀₁ = 4.67–19.99). No country difference on any single subscale survived correction. Female students reported stronger preferences on six subscales, with the same direction in both countries (d = 0.31–0.45; 82–88% distributional overlap), but much of this reflected higher overall endorsement: after standardisation, female students relatively favoured synthesising and metaphoric approaches and male students auditory and literal approaches. Apparent country differences in the unscreened data did not survive duplicate removal. Gender differences in learning preferences were therefore modest and consistent across two contrasting educational contexts, supporting a gender similarities account and cautioning against gendered or culturally essentialised teaching. The findings also show that duplicate screening and response-style correction can change the substantive conclusions of cross-national survey research. Implications are discussed for teacher education and for Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 5.