BOYS AND GIRLS IN THE PERFORMANCE-BASED SCIENCE CLASSROOM - WHOS DOING THE PERFORMING

The aim of this study was to examine whether over the school year boys and girls equally share in performing the behaviors required of hands -on activities (e.g., manipulating the equipment, directing the activi ty, observing) in the performance-based science classroom. In addition , we examined whether these performance behaviors accounted for change s in boys' and girls' science attitudes (i.e., ability perceptions and task value beliefs) at the end of the school year. The sample include d 165 students (53% female, mean age = 12.21) in six Grade 5-Grade 8 p erformance-based science classrooms where the teachers associated with these classrooms were identified not only as exemplary hands-on scien ce instructors but also instructors sensitive to increasing girls' par ticipation in science. Our results indicated that being actively invol ved in the performance-based science classroom predicted students' end -of-the year science attitudes. However, boys and girls did not partic ipate equally in these classrooms. Moreover, we found that for girls, but not boys, there was a decrease in science ability perceptions over the school year, suggesting that boys and girls experienced these cla ssrooms differently.