Gender | Centre for the Use of Research & Evidence in Education (CUREE)

Strategies for improving boys' academic performance

Aim: To identify strategies which teachers can use to improve the performance of boys and their attitude to learning. In particular to examine the effectiveness of mentoring, as a strategy for improving boys academic performance. Also to ascertain which teaching methodologies are most likely to engage boys in their own learning.

Using learning logs to explore the views of exceptionally able boys on learning inside and outside the classroom

Aim: The aim of the investigation was to explore with some of our Exceptionally Able (EA) students specific aspects of learning which helped them to learn best and to assess what could be improved. We asked a group of EA students to fill in learning logs in order to find out what motivates EA students to learn, how can schools help such students plan their own learning and encourage independence and what is the impact on teachers' practice when confronted with the student voice in the form of learning logs.

Gender and mathematics: what can research tell us about how we teach mathematics to boys and girls?

Aim: The project had three quite distinct aims: 1) To identify from existing research literature what is known about gender differences in learning mathematics at secondary school - no attempt was made to establish any new insights; 2) To elicit, through interviews, the perceptions that a group of mathematics teachers had concerning the impact of gender on learning mathematics; and 3) To use the contrasts and similarities between the findings of the research and the outcomes of the interviews, as astimulus for the development of classroom teaching.

The Role of Handwriting in Raising Achievement

Aim: To establish whether fluent handwriting can be a factor in raising achievement.

Investigating the Teaching of Writing Frames: Raising Standards In Boys' Writing

Aim: To investigate how writing frames can be used to improve the standard of boys writing.

Children writing: shaping words, shaping thoughts

Aim: To develop cursive writing from entry to support creative writing, to consider gender issues in the use of this approach and to summarise the impact of this approach.

Raising boys' attainment in English through single gender teaching and assessment for learning strategies

Aim: The original aim of the project was to investigate ways to raise boys attainment in English. We were aware that our GCSE top sets were heavily weighted towards girls, with often less than ten boys in a group of thirty plus, and we wanted to address this imbalance. The main aim of the study was to close the attainment gap between boys and girls.

Raising students' performance in relation to NFER CAT scores

Aim: To identify actions teachers can take to improve learning through an examination of students academic performance in relation to prior attainment as measured by NFER Cognitive Abilities Test scores.

Factors that help children learn to read

Aim: To identify factors that influence childrens success in reading in the later stages of Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3, and to recognise and deploy strategies for maximising that success.

Managing gender difference issues within the Design and Technology workshop

Aim: The aims of this project were to understand the theory behind gender difference (boys and girls learn differently, why?), research the interaction between girls, boys and the resources and machinery they use within the Design and Technology workshop to identify trends and devise solutions that can be applied in the Design and Technology workshop to overcome gender difference issues and raise achievement.