This research aims to replicate the study by Forbes (1988) who investigated gender differences in attainment in a Scholarship examination in mathematics. There are three major differences between this study and hers. First, this research is based on a mainstream Advanced Level examination paper rather than a Scholarship paper. Second, the study aims to discover whether the results found in New Zealand apply to pupils in Britain. Third, the examination paper includes questions on mechanics, which did not appear in the New Zealand examination, as well as statistics and pure mathematics. Following Forbes, the initial hypotheses are that girls and boys will perform equally well on some, at least, of the pure mathematics questions. There is also the opportunity to look for gender differences in attainment in mechanics questions.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education