Sex-related differences in the acquisition of the van hiele levels and motivation in learning geometry

The purpose of this study was to examine the acquisition of the van Hiele levels and motivation of sixth-grade students engaged in instruction using van Hiele theory-based mathematics curricula. There were 150 sixth-grade students, 66 boys and 84 girls, involved in the study. The researcher employed a multiple-choice geometry test to find out students’ reasoning stages and a questionnaire to detect students’ motivation in regards to the instruction. These instruments were administered to the students before and after a five-week period of instruction. The paired-samples t-test, the independent-samples t-test, and ANCOVA with α = .05 were used to analyze the quantitative data. The study demonstrated that there was no statistically significant difference as in motivation between boys and girls, and that no significant difference was detected in the acquisition of the levels between boys and girls. In other words, gender was not a factor in learning geometry.