Author(s): Stephanie Burke

Presentation: poster

The purpose of my research was to determine a difference in student’s self-efficacy, depending on whether the student was placed in a single-gender classroom or mixed classroom. Self-efficacy, as defined by Albert Bandura (1987), is a person’s beliefs about his or her capabilities. I investigated whether single-gender classrooms in an elementary school setting had an effect on student’s perceived self-efficacy. Data was collected in five different ways: student surveys, student focus group interviews, teacher interviews, parent interviews, and classroom observations. The student survey instrument was the Morgan-Jinks Student Efficacy Scale (MJSES). Preliminary findings based on students in the fifth grade (n = 74) suggest: girls within the single-gender classroom, n = 27, have higher self-efficacy compared to girls within the traditional mixed classroom, n = 11, (p < 0.05); boys within the single-gender classroom, n = 23, have higher self-efficacy compared to boys within the traditional mixed classroom, n = 13, (p < 0.05); finally, data also suggested that students within single-gender classroom, n = 50, have higher self-efficacy than students within the traditional mixed classroom, n = 24, (p < 0.05). This quantitative data was triangulated with student, parent, and teacher follow-up interviews.

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