Single -sex schooling and girls' gender -role identity and creativity
Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate the difference in creativity of female students in a single-sex high school and female students in a co-ed high school. A 2nd purpose was to investigate the difference between gender-role identity and creativity in girls in a single-sex high school and in girls in a co-ed high school. The first group of 72 participants was enrolled in a single-sex private school in a mid-sized suburban community. The 2nd group of 87 participants was enrolled in a co-ed private school in a large urban community. All students participated in the study on a volunteer basis with parental permission. All students were administered the Carlson Analytical Originality Scale and the Bem Sex-Role Inventory. All students were given a creative writing task that was evaluated by 2 independent expert judges. The students in the co-ed group had higher language arts scores than did those students in the single-sex group. This difference was shown to be statistically significant. However, the students in the single-sex group had significantly higher creativity scores. A regression analysis was then computed to determine what amount of variance was contributed by both language arts ability and school type. This analysis demonstrated that 21.83% of the variance was contributed by language arts scores and an additional 21.79% of the variance was contributed by school type. The results of this study indicate that school type is an important factor in contributing to the creativity of female students in a single-sex high school. Future research should continue to identify and refine additional factors in the school environment which influence the development of girls' and women's creativity.
Subject Area
Educational psychology|Womens studies|Developmental psychology
Recommended Citation
McVey, Lynne Anne, "Single -sex schooling and girls' gender -role identity and creativity" (2003). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI3101155.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI3101155
