Literature, the young girls' club: gender, motivation, and upper-level English electives

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between gender and motivation in relation to senior secondary school students' decisions to take English Literature 12, and to discover why so few male students choose to take English Literature 12. Moreover, the study attempts to assess the impact of the Canon Debate on female students' perceptions of upper-level English courses in secondary school. Motivation was assessed using 31 7 -point Likert scale questions from the Motivated Strategies for LearningQuCJtionnaire. (MSLQJ. The scales from the MSLQ were designed to measure students' Goal Orientation, Task Value beliefs, and Self-Efficacy perceptions. Students' attitudes toward English electives, especially English Literature 12, were analyzed using 11 questions relating to the study of English, attitudes toward Shakespearean works, attitudes toward poetry, and beliefs about the utility of literature in general. Ninety-one grade 12 students from Prince George Secondary School participated in the study. Data was analyzed using a non-parametric test (MannWhitney U). Significant results from this test were further analyzed using singlefactor AN OVA. Tukey's HSD test was used as a post-hoc error protection measure. Results of the study suggest that declining literacy levels may be closer to the heart of the Literature 12 enrolment anomaly than either course content or gender. Students who had not chosen to take Literature 12, regardless of gender, felt that the study of Shakespearean works and poetry were irrelevant to them. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research for English educators and curricularists.