Relations of science students’ academic performance at university level with their gender: a case study at the faculty of science, university of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Abstract

University is an institution for higher education, research, and social development. Hence, the students’ performance at the University is very important as graduates are supposed to become future leaders in this world. There are many factors affecting the students’ performance at the University level. Thus, this study was focusing on assessing the impact of gender on students’ academic performance at University level. This is a quantitative study. Sample of the study was drawn from the Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya through convenient sampling technique. The sample consisted of 1729 undergraduates from four consecutive batches from 2006 to 2009. There were 822 males and 907 females in the sample. The data were collected through documents from the Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya and analyzed using MS Excel 2010 and SPSS 17. The study established a relationship between gender of students and their performance measured according to the students’ Grade Point Average (GPA) at the University. The results of the study revealed that the performance of female students is higher than that of males. There were 18% of female undergraduates in 4.00-3.70 GPA range while only 5% of male undergraduates were in the same range. Male undergraduates are prominent in 3.30-3.00 GPA range and < 3.00 GPA.This situation could be due to many inter-related factors such as study habits, aspirations, self-concepts, motivation, other psychological conditions, and some physiological aspects. Thus, an in-depth study has to be conducted to investigate the issue in order to support especially the male students to perform well in their higher education at the University level.