Gender Differences in Chemical Problem Solving amongst Nigerian Students

Abstract

This study investigated sex differences in chemical problem solving amongst the secondary school chemistry students. The sample consisted of form‐five chemistry students consisting of 100 boys and 100 girls randomly sampled from five rural and five urban schools in Bendel Stale, Nigeria. The research instruments comprised of three written tests together with an inteview. The anaylsis of the students’ written responses to the tests and the interview protocols revealed that the male students excelled over the female students in the following areas of problem‐solving processess: (i) problem understanding/representation; (ii) construction of problem‐solving plans; (iii) exhibition of structural errors; (iv) execution of solution plans and (v) evaluation of solution processes.