Exploring the Jordanian Gender Gap in a Large-Scale Assessment in Mathematics

This study examined the Jordanian mathematics results in the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) with respect to gender differences. A total of 7038 Jordanian students (51.4% males and 48.6% females) took the PISA 2012 math test, where mathematics was the major domain of assessment. Contrary to most PISA countries, female students in Jordan significantly outperformed males on overall math literacy scale and on almost all math literacy contents and processes subscales. The largest differences were on the uncertainty and data and the change and relationships content subscales, and on the employing and the interpreting processes subscales. However, no significant gender differences were found among Jordanian students at level 3 and above of the six proficiency levels on the combined mathematics scale, nor in the higher percentiles, 90th and 95th percentiles. Reasons for the differential gender performance were speculated, and directions of future research were proposed.