Gender Differences in Numeracy Performance among Grade X Students: A Comparative Study in an Indonesian Islamic Senior High School

Abstract

Numeracy is a fundamental component of mathematical competence, yet empirical evidence regarding gender-related differences in numeracy performance remains inconsistent across educational contexts. This study examined whether numeracy performance differed between male and female Grade X students at SMAIT Nurul Asafa Takalar, an Islamic Integrated Senior High School in Indonesia. A quantitative comparative design was employed involving the entire Grade X cohort of 60 students, comprising 30 male and 30 female students. Data were collected through a numeracy test and analyzed using JASP. The analysis included descriptive statistics, Shapiro–Wilk test (Shapiro & Wilk, 1965)s, the Brown–Forsythe test, an independent-samples t-test, and Cohen’s d effect size. Female students obtained a higher mean numeracy score than male students (78.03 vs. 74.53), representing a mean difference of 3.50 points. However, the independent-samples t-test indicated that the difference was not statistically significant, t(58) = −1.531, p = .131. The standardized mean difference was d = −0.3954 (|d| ≈ 0.40), indicating an observed difference between conventional small and medium effect-size benchmarks. These findings suggest that the descriptive difference in numeracy performance was not sufficient to establish a statistically significant gender difference within the studied cohort. The study contributes context-specific evidence to the mixed literature on gender and numeracy and highlights the importance of interpreting group differences alongside effect size, sample characteristics, and broader learner and instructional factors.