There are multiple factors which contribute to differential performance between males and females in examinations. These include teaching and learning approaches, school culture and classroom organisation, teacher expectations, student attitudes and behaviour, later maturation of boys, parental expectations, decisions regarding subject choice and levels of courses along with the format and style of questioning in the examinations. In particular, it is evident that more boys than girls are entered for foundation and ordinary levels of the junior certificate and this is likely to impact on performance and choice in senior cycle. The patterns of differences in performance of boys and girls in the leaving certificate examinations reflect those found in education systems internationally.
The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, has published a research report entitled Examining Gender — Gender and Achievement in the Junior and Leaving Certificate Examination Systems 2000/2001 in June 2003. The report claims that tiered entry systems, for example, foundation, ordinary and higher levels, can significantly interact with gender, and it points to international evidence that more boys than girls tend to be entered on lower levels courses. The study examined such issues as the syllabus content, the selection of content for assessment and the format of examination papers for junior and leaving certificate English and mathematics, junior certificate science and leaving certificate physics. None of the syllabi or areas of content chosen was seen to give undue advantage to either sex.
Communicative styles which are narrative, discursive, involve the use of own experience, imaginative and personal processes, or collaborative based approaches, along with subjects which involve a high degree of recall were found to favour girls who tend to be better organised and better prepared. Communicative approaches which are concise, deductive, functional, argumentative and non-collaborative were found to favour boys, with males coping better with novel or unfamiliar items.
In addition, the Economic and Social Research Institute is carrying out extensive longitudinal research for the NCCA on the progress of a cohort of students as they make the transition from primary to second level and progress through junior cycle. This is providing important information on the factors which are considered to have significant influence on student performance such as pupil and teacher expectations and school practice in the content of curriculum on offer to students. Feedback from the study is being disseminated to schools by the NCCA and the initial report, Moving Up — The Experiences of First Year Students in Post Primary Education, was published in 2004.
These issues raised in the above mentioned ongoing research are being considered by the NCCA as part of its programme of ongoing curricular review, and in the context of the proposals for reform of the senior cycle. The State Examinations Commission is also considering the research outcomes that are applicable to the running of the certificate examinations. My Department is committed to providing the highest possible educational opportunities for boys and girls alike and to meeting their differing needs to the fullest extent.
In terms of international studies, the OECD PISA 2003 results set out the performance of 15 year olds across 40 countries in the domains of mathematics, reading literacy, science literacy and problem solving. The study found that females have significantly higher average performance in reading in all countries except Liechtenstein, with an average OECD gender gap of 34 score points. In science, the OECD average difference was six score points in favour of males. In mathematics, while overall the gender gaps are small, Iceland was the only OECD country where females consistently perform better than males.