Gender and age-position effects in four Advanced Matriculation examinations : a cross-sectional study

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between student performance in four Advanced-level Matriculation examinations and student gender and age-position. Further to other studies, this investigation provides a detailed interpretation on the relationship that exists between student performance and the students' gender and age position at sixth-form level in Malta. Only those students who were born in 1983 and who were 18 years of age at the time of sitting for the exam were considered. The analysis is based on a data set consisting of scores in Matriculation A-level English, Maltese, Mathematics and Physics of the May-June 2001 session. All the students under investigation were divided into three different age-position groups. Although none of the chi-square tests proved to be significant, results showed that girls did slightly better than boys in Maltese (n=224), English (n=278), Mathematics (n=359) and Physics (n=267). It was also noticed, that from all the three age-position groups investigated, it was the 'Middle' age-position group that in the majority of cases surpassed the other groups in performance, but again, none of the chi-square tests was significant.