Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering

ISSN for PRINT: 1072-8325

For Online Access

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2002, Volume8

Issue 1

100 pages

Issue price - $42.00

Kerry J. Strand Strand
Department of Sociology and Social Work, Hood College

M. Elizabeth Mayfield
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Hood College

Significant gender differences persist in the election of mathematics courses and math-related majors in college. Recent research suggests that part of the blame lies with conventional pedagogical approaches and that alternative approaches emphasizing practical applications, collaborative problem solving, and group work make mathematics more understandable and appealing to all students, particularly women. Using questionnaires administered to 355 traditional-age female college students, the authors examined the relationship between alternative teaching strategies in high school mathematics classes and two categories of outcome variables: mathematics-related attitudes and mathematics persistence in college. Multivariate analysis showed that experience with this so-called female-friendly pedagogy is positively related to students’ math-related attitudes and that these attitudes predict math persistence in college. However, the authors’ data also indicate that alternative teaching strategies have no discernible direct effect on students’ choices of mathematics courses or mathrelated

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