Investigating the Relationships between Preferences, Gender, Task Difficulty, and High School Students’ Geometry Performance

Abstract

In this research study, I investigated the relationships between preferences for solution methods, task difficulty, gender, and high school students’ geometry performance. Data were collected from 161 geometry students at six high schools at a county located in the southeastern region of the USA at the time of the 2013–2014 school year. The result revealed that there was not an association between preference for solution methods and geometry performance. The majority of students demonstrated a preference for visual solution methods. However, the preference for visual or nonvisual methods was not associated with task difficulty. That is, students were equally likely to employ visual as well as nonvisual solution methods regardless of the task difficulty. The study further revealed that there was a significant difference between male and female students in geometry performance but not in preferences for solution methods. Females outperformed males in geometry performance. The data analysis also indicated that the majority of students were visualizers.