Gender Differences in Mathematics: Trends in Performance

Longitudinal entry and performance data for the Australian Mathematics Competition, which in 1992 attracted over 500,000 entries from secondary school students, are presented in this paper. Male and female patterns are of particular interest. Examination of data over the 10-yr. period from 1983 to 1992 showed that the number of females in the postcompulsory years of education electing to enter the competition increasingly approaches entry figures for males. Performance differences between females and males are also decreasing for most of the categories of questions found in the paper. However, the opposite effect was observed in questions categorized as algebraic. The implications of the findings are discussed.