Abstract
POOR PERFORMANCE IN MATHEMATICS, IS THERE A GENDER BIAS

In this paper, we examine the academic performance of students in various Mathematics courses offered among students in the four faculties of Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria. Four departments are randomly selected from the four faculties and scores of 411 students (227 males and 184 females) in various Mathematics courses are observed. Literature survey on gender differences at different levels indicate mixed results. However, one common finding is that females outperform their male counterparts in higher education Adejumo and Adetunji. Independent sample t-test reveals that the hypothesis of equality of mean score in various Mathematics courses for male and female for all the departments is not rejected. This implies that there is no significant difference in the average score of students (male and female) in Mathematics across the departments. Levene’s test of equality of variance also reveals that there is no significant difference in the variance of both groups in all the departments.