Difference on the Value of Education Between Male and Female Graduated Students

Culture and Education The cultural ideals that an individual develops during childhood remain as he/she grows into an adult, influencing basic functions, like communication, relational styles, and thinking processes, as well as conflict resolution. Therefore, these may have different impacts with regard to education for female and male graduates. The influence of culture on education in graduate females and males is found through multivariate statistical analysis. Study participants come from twelve online graduate-level courses where females (n = 162) outnumbered male students (n = 31).

Culture and Education The key cultural proficiency concept is to get a grasp of how far the culture pervades our lives. The cultural ideals that an individual develops during childhood remain as he/she grows into an adult, influencing basic functions, like communication, relational styles, and thinking processes, as well as conflict resolution. However, this awareness will not guarantee application of this knowledge by educators. Mindful practice is required before cultural proficiency principles can be applied.

Hence, professional development which endeavors to aid educators in becoming culturally proficient should take place with time; also, it must be closely connected with educators' practical work (Guerra & Nelson, 2011). Purpose of the study It has been proved that culture influences education; this influence may vary with gender. Thus, this study attempts to determine cultural influence on graduate-level students and difference of its impact on females and males (Guerra & Nelson, 2011; Frazzetto, 2011). Research question What effect does culture have on educational value between female and male graduates? 1.3.

Hypothesis H1: A statistically significant disparity exists on education value between female and male graduates. H0: No statistically significant disparity exists on education value between female and male graduates. 2. Review of literature Multiple researches (Rovai & Baker, 2005; Ostrosky-Sol's & Lozano, 2006; Frazzetto, 2011) from diverse theoretical angles (like, constructivism) prove that students often have conceptions regarding education that affect their learning. A majority of such studies, however, have been conducted in Western nations. Frazzetto, in a 2011 work, voiced concerns with regard to absence of education-centered research in non-Western nations.

They sponsored small- and large- scale researches, which delved into cultural and group differences for students in their educational tasks and decision-making. It would certainly be interesting to determine how cultural backgrounds shape educational conceptions of graduates, and the disparities between female and male graduates. On account of education's globalization in the past decades, the topic of education-related cultural issues has garnered increasing interest.

This interest has arisen partly because of concerns pertaining to learners with a non-Western cultural context, which is not part of mainstream Western educational and technological development and partly because of growing interest in works related to teachers' capacity in addressing cultural elements of learning (Ostrosky-Sol's & Lozano, 2006; Guerra & Nelson, 2011). Furthermore, cultural sensitivity is required in cases where a curriculum is being taught that is not natively grounded and in multicultural classes (Rovai & Baker, 2005).

Though there are some studies based on non-Western nations, they are closely linked to English or American research and fail to address how participant decision-making is impacted by their culture (Greer & Mukhopadhyay, 2005), which is surprising; statistics educators are capable of handling such studies. The element of gender, specifically, is worth giving extra consideration, particularly because evidence has been found regarding the fact that education impacts members of different gender groups in different ways (Ostrosky-Sol's & Lozano, 2006). Widespread academic literature proves gender-based differences in communication (Nuzhat, Salem, Hamdan & Ashour, 2013) 2.1.

Theoretical framework This study will be guided by the I-E-O (Input--Environment -- Outcome) college impact model of Astin (1991). This model postulates causal relations between three kinds of variables, namely, inputs (students' background and demographic characteristics brought to college by them), environments (college environments and experiences encountered during college-times by students), and outcomes (at the end of college) (Frazzetto, 2011). 3. Methodology 3.1. Research design In this study, asynchronous courses were presented in classwork. Such a system comprises a consolidated collection of application instruments that students can access through the Internet.

The duration of each course was 16 weeks or one semester, and delivered wholly through the Internet. Faculty responsible for delivering these courses -- a combination of female and male professors -- had prior online teaching experience. Some of the course titles were "Technology Integration in Curriculum and Instruction" and "Foundations of Teaching and Learning." (Nuzhat et al., 2013) 3.2. Sample 281 students in total who had joined up any of 12 online graduation courses delivered by a Virginia State accredited university were invited to take part in the research.

Out of these, 193 agreed, resulting in a 68.7% volunteer rate. Females comprised 83.9% study subjects while the rest (16.1%) were males. Majority female enrolment in graduate courses is in line with the reasonably large amount of K-12 educators who are female. In terms of ethnicity, study participants were: 62.7% Caucasians, 30.1% African-Americans, 2.1% Asians, and 5.2% of other ethnic backgrounds. Mean participant age was 39.01 (187 subjects were willing to share this information) (Standard Deviation = 9.87) (Rovai & Baker, 2005). 3.3.

Instruments Study data was collected via a web-based survey, which comprised: (a) the CCS or Classroom Community Scale, (b) self-report of perceived cognitive skills, and (c) several demographic questions pertaining to age, sex, and ethnicity. CCS gauges classroom community and comprises a score of self-report questions examining classroom community. Every question is accompanied by a Likert scale with 5 potential responses ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree (Rovai & Baker, 2005). 3.4.

Data collection Data collection will be done in the course's last two weeks, as well as for two weeks after semester completion for all courses included in the study, for students to have extensive course exposure. Students had to answer the question on perceived learning and demographic questions on age, sex, and ethnicity on an online form (Frazzetto, 2011; Guerra & Nelson, 2011). 3.5.

Data analysis Data analysis will be conducted through MANOVA or multivariate analysis of variance, and subsequently, discrete ANOVAs for all dependent variables as well as discriminant analysis for ascertaining how precisely gender of students can be identified on the basis of a linear arrangement of the measures. Eta squared statistic was employed for effect size calculation, while Cohen's thresholds.