Gender and Achievement: the experiences of, and attitudes to, education of high achieving boys and girls at the end of the primary phase.

这项研究将批判性地评估北爱尔兰小学阶段结束时成绩优异的学生的教育经历和态度。大多数教育研究集中在成绩不佳的问题上，特别是在中学阶段。对性别和成就的关注也主要集中在男孩表现不佳而女孩表现优异的观点上。本研究旨在系统地调查男性和女性的高成就者和他们的生活教育经历，以消除目前对性别及其与成就关系的简单化理解。这项研究将采用一种混合方法，在三个研究领域内进行。第一阶段将涉及在初级阶段结束时按性别对结果数据进行基于桌面的分析。这将寻求建立来自不同学校和社会经济领域的女孩和男孩之间的表现模式。第二阶段将涉及使用在线问卷来寻求小学教师对男孩和女孩的成就的看法。第三部分将包括对小学进行10次个案研究访问，与教师进行半结构化访谈，并在小学阶段结束时对男孩和女孩进行焦点小组访谈。这项研究将对这一领域作出原创性贡献，了解初等教育结束时的学习、教学和评价的特点，这些特点可能导致成绩优异者之间的成绩差异，以及可能更普遍地影响男孩和女孩成绩的因素。

This study will critically evaluate the educational experiences and attitudes of high achieving pupils at the end of the primary phase in Northern Ireland. The majority of educational research focuses on underachievement, particularly during the secondary phase of schooling. The focus on gender and achievement has also been predominantly situated around the position that boys are underachieving and girls are overachieving. This study aims to systematically investigate both male and female high achievers and their lived experiences of education in order to dispel current simplistic understandings of gender and its relationship to achievement. The study will adopt a mixed-methods approach carried out within three research strands. Strand one will involve a desk-based analysis of outcome data by gender at the end of the primary phase. This will seek to establish performance patterns between girls and boys from a variety of schools and socioeconomic areas. Strand two will involve the use of an online questionnaire to seek the views of primary school teachers in relation to boys' and girls' achievements. The third strand will consist of ten case study visits to primary schools to conduct semi-structured interviews with teachers and focus group interviews with boys and girls at the end of the primary phase. The research will make an original contribution to the field by understanding the characteristics of learning, teaching and assessment at the end of the primary education that may contribute to differences in performance between high achievers and factors that might affect boys' and girls' achievements more generally.