Tertiary Preparation Program Comparing and Contrast

TERTIARY PREPARATION
PROGRAM

1
Comparing and contrasting the influence of single-sex education and co-education on
student outcomes
Single-sex education has been a trend from the ancient past. In any part of the world, such
schools were prevalent from many years. This is much higher in the traditional societies like
India where one can easily find the schools that entertains single-sex. It was considered that
single-sex education will not let anyone to be uncomfortable (Smyth, 2010). At the same time
it was also understood that there is a mentality of the orthodox parents that their children will
be more focused towards their studies if they go to such single-sex schools. However the
societies have changed and the mentality of the people all across the world is also changing.
This change in the mentality of the parents has allowed students to go in the co-educational
schooling.
Single-sex education and co-education has different types of impact on the educational
outcome of the students. According to the research among school students in Australia in
more than 3000 Australian schools suggested that ‘Single sex education does not add better
value in the students when compared with co-education (Garcia-Gracia & Donoso Vázquez,
2016). However, Dix a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Survey Research Program
suggests that students in the single-sex schools were significantly more likely to perform
better than their co-ed counterpart especially in reading and numeracy achievement over time
(Pahlke, Hyde & Allison, 2014). It is seen that in the single-sex educational institutions
educational outcomes are higher for the students. This is because classroom disruptions are
on the lower side when compared with co-ed schools. It is seen that students enrolling in the
single-sex educational background are lesser likely to get indulged in the emotions and most
of the students remains focused towards their education. On the other hand in the co-ed
school students creates other distractions especially at the teenage levels. Data also showed
that the students that are studying in the single-sex schools are more likely to perform better
in maths. However the results vary when it comes to comparing the boys and girls of single-
sex schools with boys and girls of co-ed respectively (Pahlke, Hyde & Mertz, 2013).
However the results in the holistic development of the students differ i.e. in the co-curricular
activities the co-ed counterparts performed better than their counterparts in the single sex
schools.
The difference also lies in their social behaviour as it is seen that students that are the part of
the single-schools do not develop a habit of how to interact with other sexes. Socially these