The Impact of Gender on the Academic Achievement of Students of Foreign Languages at the University of Jordan

Abstract

Arabic is the official language in Jordan, and English is the dominant foreign language. The Faculty of Foreign Languages at the University of Jordan offers several European and Asian languages. In previous research which examined the relationship between socio-economic factors and the academic achievement of foreign language students at the University of Jordan, gender was the most significant factor that predicted academic achievement. These results showed the statistically significant difference between the cumulative GPA of male and female students benefiting the females. This paper aims at establishing the effects of other variables which could influence the achievement of female and male students. Quantitative data, drawn from a questionnaire completed by the entire cohort of registered students at the bachelor’s level in the Faculty of Foreign Languages, has been used. The findings reveal that parental education was significant in explaining the gender differences in the students’ GPA achievements. The education of both parents was found to be a more significant impacting variable for female students as compared to male students. It was also found that there was no significant difference between the impact of the family income variable between males and females, and no significant difference of this same variable between females at all levels of academic achievements.