Mental rotation test performances and familial sinistrality in dextrals,with special reference to the bent twig theory

Recently, in this journal, Casey 1995 and ^{McKeever (1996)} noted that they have reached opposite conclusions regarding the effect of familial sinistrality on mental rotation ability in dextral females. Casey and colleagues concluded that those dextral women with a family history of left handedness (the FS+) are comparable to men in mental rotation ability and that the overall male superiority on such tasks is a function of the poor performances of dextral women who lack left handedness (the FS−) in their families. McKeever and colleagues had come to the exact opposite conclusion. We restudied this question and eliminated three possible methodological factors that might conceivably have accounted for the different outcomes. The results of the present study failed to find any relationship of FS status to mental rotation ability. These findings raise serious questions as to the replicability of any FS status/mental rotation ability relationships.     

Mathematics education in Lebanon: gender differences in attitudes and achievement

The purpose of this study was to investigate gender differences in students’ mathematics achievement and in their attitudes toward mathematics. Another purpose was to examine mathematics teachers’ beliefs and their perceptions of their male and female students’ ability. The sample consisted of 692 students (353 girls, 339 boys) between the ages of 12 and 16 years, enrolled in grades 7–9 at four private schools in Lebanon. Data were collected using the Attitudes Toward Mathematics (ATM) scale (Aiken in Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 5, 67–71, 1974), school records, and interviews with teachers. Results showed no significant gender differences in either achievement or attitudes toward mathematics, thus dispelling the common belief that female students in traditional cultures do not perform well in mathematics and dislike the field. A main effect for grade level was found with ninth graders significantly outperforming their younger counterparts. Also, teachers viewed mathematics as a male domain and attributed boys’ success to ability and girls’ success to effort. They also interacted with boys more frequently regardless of the nature of the exchange. Implications for future research and for instructional practice are overviewed.     

The Influence of 16‐year‐old Students’ Gender,Mental Abilities,and Motivation on their Reading and Drawing Submicrorepresentations Achievements

Submicrorepresentations (SMRs) are a powerful tool for identifying misconceptions of chemical concepts and for generating proper mental models of chemical phenomena in students’ long‐term memory during chemical education. The main purpose of the study was to determine which independent variables (gender, formal reasoning abilities, visualization abilities, and intrinsic motivation for learning chemistry) have the maximum influence on students’ reading and drawing SMRs. A total of 386 secondary school students (aged 16.3 years) participated in the study. The instruments used in the study were: test of Chemical Knowledge, Test of Logical Thinking, two tests of visualization abilities Patterns and Rotations, and questionnaire on Intrinsic Motivation for Learning Science. The results show moderate, but statistically significant correlations between students’ intrinsic motivation, formal reasoning abilities and chemical knowledge at submicroscopic level based on reading and drawing SMRs. Visualization abilities are not statistically significantly correlated with students’ success on items that comprise reading or drawing SMRs. It can be also concluded that there is a statistically significant difference between male and female students in solving problems that include reading or drawing SMRs. Based on these statistical results and content analysis of the sample problems, several educational strategies can be implemented for students to develop adequate mental models of chemical concepts on all three levels of representations.     

Gender Difference in Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching in the Context of Single-Sex Classrooms

This study examines gender differences of teachers on their mathematical knowledge for teaching in the context of single-sex classrooms in Saudi Arabia. A translated version of the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) instrument (Learning Mathematics for Teaching [LMT], 2008) in Number and Operation Content Knowledge (CK) and Knowledge of Content and Student (KCS) scales were administered to 197 teachers (146 male and 51 female). Two-sample t test and multiple regression were conducted to compare the two groups and test the effect of teacher background variables. Female teachers significantly scored better than their male counterpart. Gender, years of teaching experience, and specialization significantly predicted teachers’ content knowledge, F(3, 187) = 13.180, explaining 41.8 % of the variance. Only gender and specialization significantly predicted teachers’ knowledge of content and student, F(2, 191) = 6.335, explaining 24.9 % of the variance. Further comparing items in the MKT instrument where female teachers outperformed male teachers confirmed that female teachers were better in attending to the content knowledge in the context of student’s learning.     

Spatial Ability Mediates the Gender Difference in Middle School Students' Science Performance

Prior research has demonstrated a male advantage in spatial skills and science achievement. The present research integrated these findings by testing the potential role of spatial skills in gender differences in the science performance of eighth‐grade students (13–15 years old). In 2 (N = 113), the findings showed that mental rotation ability mediated gender differences in physical science and technology/engineering test scores. In 3 (N = 73,245), science performance was examined in a state population of eighth‐grade students. As in 2 , the results revealed larger gender differences on items that showed higher correlations with mental rotation. These findings underscore the importance of considering spatial training interventions aimed at reducing gender differences in the science performance of school‐aged children.     

Different mental rotation performance in students of music,sport and education

In this study the effect of long-term physical and musical activity on spatial cognitive performance, measured by mental rotation performance, is investigated in detail. Mental rotation performance is the ability to rotate a three-dimensional object using the imagination. Three groups, each consisting of 40 students, and divided by the subjects, music, sports, and education, solved a psychometrical mental rotation task with three-dimensional block figures. The results showed a better mental rotation performance for music and sports students compared to the education students. Furthermore, the well known gender difference favoring males was found for both sports and education students but not for music students.     

Comparing effects of different writing activities on reading comprehension: A meta-analysis

The purposes of this review were to determine: (1) if different writing activities were more effective than others in improving students’ reading comprehension, and (2) if obtained differences among writing activities was related to how reading comprehension was measured? Meta-analysis was used to examine these questions across studies involving students in grades 1–12. Nineteen studies were located that met inclusion criteria, resulting in 4 writing activities comparisons with 4 or more studies per comparison: summary writing versus answering questions (k = 5), summary writing versus note taking (k = 7), answering questions versus note taking (k = 4), and answering questions versus extended writing activities (k = 6). Effect sizes calculated for each writing activities comparison indicated there were no statistically significant differences for any of these comparisons when effects were averaged over all reading comprehension measures, excluding treatment-inherent measures. However, statistically significant differences were found for two of the comparisons on specific measures. Extended writing enhanced reading comprehension better than question answering on measures where comprehension was assessed via an extended writing activity, whereas summary writing enhanced reading comprehension better than question answering on a free recall measure. The results provide limited support for the theoretical viewpoint that writing activities are differentially effective in improving reading comprehension based on how closely the writing activities are aligned with a particular measure.     

Time limits in testing: An analysis of eye movements and visual attention in spatial problem solving

Individuals with an aptitude for interpreting spatial information (high mental rotation ability: HMRA) typically master anatomy with more ease, and more quickly, than those with low mental rotation ability (LMRA). This article explores how visual attention differs with time limits on spatial reasoning tests. Participants were assorted to two groups based on their mental rotation ability scores and their eye movements were collected during these tests. Analysis of salience during testing revealed similarities between MRA groups in untimed conditions but significant differences between the groups in the timed one. Question‐by‐question analyses demonstrate that HMRA individuals were more consistent across the two timing conditions (κ = 0.25), than the LMRA (κ = 0.013). It is clear that the groups respond to time limits differently and their apprehension of images during spatial problem solving differs significantly. Without time restrictions, salience analysis suggests LMRA individuals attended to similar aspects of the images as HMRA and their test scores rose concomitantly. Under timed conditions however, LMRA diverge from HMRA attention patterns, adopting inflexible approaches to visual search and attaining lower test scores. With this in mind, anatomical educators may wish to revisit some evaluations and teaching approaches in their own practice. Although examinations need to evaluate understanding of anatomical relationships, the addition of time limits may induce an unforeseen interaction of spatial reasoning and anatomical knowledge. Anat Sci Educ 10: 528–537. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.     

Measurement of cognitive load in multimedia learning: a comparison of different objective measures

Different indicators are interesting for analyzing human learning processes. Recent studies analyze learning performance in combination with cognitive load, as an indicator for learners’ invested mental effort. In order to compare different measures of cognitive load research, the present study uses three different objective methods and one subjective method, reviewing the seductive details effect in a computer-based multimedia learning instruction. An experimental two-group design (N = 50) was used, with exposure to seductive details during learning as the between group factor. Eye movements were analyzed concerning the indicated cognitive activity and cognitive load was measured by the rhythm method (Park 2010; Park and Brünken 2015), the index of cognitive activity (ICA) (Marshall 2007), as well as by subjective ratings of mental effort and task difficulty (Paas 1992). Results confirm the seductive details effect for learning success with a decrease in retention and comprehension performance, an increase in total cognitive activity indicated by eye movements and significant higher cognitive load, indicated by rhythm method. The ICA values and the subjective ratings on mental effort and task difficulty show no difference in cognitive load between the groups. The results provide evidence of the suitability of different objective measures for a direct and continuous cognitive load assessment in multimedia learning. Further, the results show the benefit of combining different methods to gain detailed insight into information processing while learning with multimedia as well as a differentiated access to the single cognitive load factors.     

Coping strategies,optimism, and life satisfaction among first<Emphasis Type="Italic">-</Emphasis>year university students in Italy: gender and age differences

The transition to university appears to be a complex and delicate time in students’ lives, involving a sequence of changes regarding both the personal/affective and social/professional spheres, facilitating students’ ability to adapt to a new life context. It represents a challenging time that requires students to use adaptive resources to face many changes, including a new academic environment (Park and Adler Health Psychology, 22(6), 627, 2003; Anderson et al. International Journal of Educational Research, 33(4), 325–339, 2000). This paper presents an investigation that focuses on Italian students in transition to university to assess existing gender and age differences in coping strategies and optimism. Furthermore, the study also was designed to explore the impact that coping strategies and optimism have on students’ life satisfaction. The sample consists of 298 first-year undergraduate Italian students enrolled in social science courses at the University of Cagliari (Sardinia): 152 (51%) were female and 146 (49%) were male. The ages of the participants ranged from 18 to 37 years, with a mean age of 23.2 years (SD = 3.9) The statistical analysis revealed a strong influence from optimism and coping strategies on life satisfaction, as well as an important role played by both gender and age in shaping students’ coping strategies, optimism, and life satisfaction. This research could contribute to helping students better face this life transition, thereby increasing life satisfaction and class-attendance levels, improving academic performance, and reducing the number of university dropouts.     

Doubling mental rotation scores in high school students: Effects of motivational and strategic trainings

Achievement in mathematics, science, biology, chemistry, and other school subjects requiring abstract reasoning on spatial relationships is favored by mental rotation abilities, that is by the capability to mentally manipulate objects in space. This suggests the need to develop effective trainings aimed at improving mental rotation performance. Previous research focused mostly on practice with spatial tasks. Since motivational beliefs, gender stereotypes and self-confidence can affect performance, this research tested the hypothesis that a training including motivational aspects will be effective as well. Two intervention studies with high school students (n = 122 and n = 70 respectively) confirmed that a three-session-training based on allowing practice in adopting a holistic strategy to solve the mental rotation items or on fostering effective motivational beliefs increased the mental rotation scores up to 1 SD. The discussion focuses on the characteristics of effective trainings aimed at improving mental rotation abilities in high school students.     

The Effectiveness of the Geospatial Curriculum Approach on Urban Middle-Level Students’ Climate Change Understandings

Climate change science is a challenging topic for student learning. This quantitative study examined the effectiveness of a geospatial curriculum approach to promote climate change science understandings in an urban school district with eighth-grade students and investigated whether teacher- and student-level factors accounted for students’ climate change knowledge achievement. The participants included 12 science teachers and 956 eighth-grade students. Data included a pre- and posttest climate change assessment measures for both teachers and students and a teacher measure of Geospatial Science-Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Paired-sample t tests revealed statistically significant gains from pretest to posttest on their climate change knowledge (p < .001; effect sizes being large on multiple-choice items and medium on the open-ended response assessment). Both ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression and 2-level hierarchical linear modeling found that students’ initial climate change knowledge and gender were significant predictors for students’ posttest scores, p < .05. Students’ pretest scores were the strongest significant predictor of the posttest scores, p < .001. Neither the teachers’ climate change knowledge nor their Geospatial Science-Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge had significant association with the students’ posttest scores. Teaching years was a significant predictor for students’ posttest scores in OLS regression (p < .001). The findings provide support that a geospatial curriculum approach is an effective science curriculum approach for learners in urban middle-level education.     

Gender differences in spatial ability: Relationship to spatial experience among Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong

Spatial ability based on measures of mental rotation, and spatial experience based on self‐reported participation in visual‐arts as well as spatial‐orientation activities were assessed in a sample of 337 Chinese, gifted students. Consistent with past findings for the general population, there were gender differences in spatial ability favoring boys. However, other results provided little support for the idea that gender differences in spatial experience might foster gender differences in spatial ability; specifically, results showed modest gender differences in visual‐arts experience favoring girls, and variation in visual orientation experience favoring secondary‐school boys. Nonetheless, the role of spatial experience had a more marked effect on girls, suggesting that encouraging female students to gain spatial experience might help bridge the gap in spatial ability between the genders.     

Learning problem-solving through making games at the game design and learning summer program

Today’s complex and fast-evolving world necessitates young students to possess design and problem-solving skills more than ever. One alternative method of teaching children problem-solving or thinking skills has been using computer programming, and more recently, game-design tasks. In this pre-experimental study, a group of middle school students (n = 18) with an age average of 12.6 attended a game-design summer program for 10 days. Students were assessed in their problem-solving skills, specifically in system analysis and design, decision-making, and troubleshooting domains, at the beginning and end of the program. The results indicated that there were significant improvements in students’ problem-solving skills after attending the summer program, Wilks’ Λ = .258, F (3, 15) = 14.397, p < .001, η ² = .742. For system analysis and design, and decision-making follow-up t-tests pointed to large and medium effect sizes, while for troubleshooting the gains were not significant. This study is a contributes to the growing body of literature investigating the benefits of designing games for young children by adding that game-design activities can be suitable venues for young children to learn and practice problem-solving skills.     

Is Science Me? Exploring Middle School Students’ STE-M Career Aspirations

This study explores middle school students’ aspirations in science, technology, engineering, and medical (STE-M) careers by analyzing survey data during their eighth and ninth grade years from an ethnically and economically diverse sample of Southern California urban and suburban public school students (n = 493). Students were classified based on their responses to questions about their science ability beliefs and subjective task values using latent class analysis (LCA). Four distinct groups of students were identified: Science is Me; I Value Science But Don’t Do It Well; I Can Do Science but I Don’t Value It Highly; and Science is Not Me. Few students (22 %) were classified as having strong science ability beliefs, and only a third as strongly valuing learning/doing science; a majority (57 %) were in the Science is Not Me category, underscoring the scope of the challenge to invite more young people to want to learn science. As predicted, students who believed they could do science and valued science were more likely than others to indicate interest in STE-M careers. This relationship between perceptions and aspirations was true regardless of gender, ethnicity, and type of STE-M field, but varied depending on socioeconomic status. Using LCA to organize information about students’ science self-perceptions may help target specific interventions to student interests and aspirations and better support and encourage their persistence in STE-M careers.     

Is Caregiver Gender Important for Boys and Girls? Gender-Specific Child–Caregiver Interactions and Attachment Relationships

Outcomes of studies with exclusively or predominantly female caregivers suggest that boys in child care are involved with interactions, attachment relationships, and care of lower quality than girls. We investigated to what extent child gender (N = 38, 19 boys) and caregiver gender (N = 38, 19 males) is associated with child–caregiver interactions and attachment relationships. Children’s involvement and caregivers’ sensitive and stimulation behaviors were observed using systematic observations of semistructured play. Children’s secure attachment with caregivers was observed using the Attachment Q-Sort. Research Findings: Male and female caregivers showed similar sensitive behaviors toward boys and girls, and children had similar levels of secure attachment with male and female caregivers. Female caregivers had a tendency to stimulate boys more than girls, and this behavior was associated with a lower secure attachment in boys. Girls’ involvement with the caregiver was associated with male and female caregivers’ sensitive behavior and with male but not female caregivers’ stimulation. Conversely, boys’ involvement with the caregiver was elicited by sensitive but not stimulating behavior of male caregivers but not by female caregivers. Practice or Policy: Boys and girls can have equally positive interactions and attachment relationships with both male and female caregivers.     

Revisiting “The fertilization fairytale:” an analysis of gendered language used to describe fertilization in science textbooks from middle school to medical school

Emily Martin’s (Signs J Women Cult Soc 16(31):485–501, 1991) article, “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male–Female Roles,” was published in Signs over 20 years ago. In this groundbreaking article, she discusses how gender roles are often projected onto reproductive biology, leading to the portrayal of eggs as passive and sperm as active. We were interested in seeing if many of her findings are still relevant today. We analyzed science textbooks from the middle school to the medical school level to determine if fertilization in human reproduction is described in gender-biased language regarding the sentence structure, amount of information provided for female and male processes/parts, and neutrality in describing female and male processes/parts. Although there has been much improvement, there is still a long way to go. Sexist language in scientific textbooks is troubling because it negatively affects both female and male students and undermines teachers’ ability to teach in an accurate and gender-neutral way.     

Aspects of pronominal resolution as markers of reading comprehension: the role of antecedent variability

This study explored pronominal resolution as a measure of reading comprehension beyond single sentences. Specifically, it was hypothesized that the ability to specify the referents of pronouns like this and these that have variable antecedents would be a good probe of the quality of the reader’s mental model. This idea was tested in a study of 123 French eight-year-olds. After controlling for word decoding, vocabulary and syntactic knowledge, various aspects of pronominal comprehension were found to contribute independent variance to reading comprehension: (1) pronominal knowledge as measured in a pronoun selection task, (2) referent specification of pronouns that refer to protagonists. In addition, (3) referent specification of pronouns (French y and en) with variable antecedents added further independent variance. The results support the idea that the ability to specify referents accounts for unique variance in reading comprehension and may tap the quality of the reader’s mental model of preceding text.     

Gender Difference in Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching in the Context of Single-Sex Classrooms

This study examines gender differences of teachers on their mathematical knowledge for teaching in the context of single-sex classrooms in Saudi Arabia. A translated version of the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) instrument (Learning Mathematics for Teaching [LMT], 2008) in Number and Operation Content Knowledge (CK) and Knowledge of Content and Student (KCS) scales were administered to 197 teachers (146 male and 51 female). Two-sample t test and multiple regression were conducted to compare the two groups and test the effect of teacher background variables. Female teachers significantly scored better than their male counterpart. Gender, years of teaching experience, and specialization significantly predicted teachers’ content knowledge, F(3, 187) = 13.180, explaining 41.8 % of the variance. Only gender and specialization significantly predicted teachers’ knowledge of content and student, F(2, 191) = 6.335, explaining 24.9 % of the variance. Further comparing items in the MKT instrument where female teachers outperformed male teachers confirmed that female teachers were better in attending to the content knowledge in the context of student’s learning.

     

Is there a gender gap? A meta-analysis of the gender differences in students' ICT literacy

The study of gender differences in academic achievement has been one of the core topics in education, especially because it may uncover possible gaps and inequalities in certain domains. Whereas these differences have largely been examined in traditional domains, such as mathematics, reading, and science, the existing body of empirical studies in the domain of ICT literacy is considerably smaller, yet abounds in diverse findings. One of the persistent findings however is that boys consider their ICT literacy to be higher than that of girls. This meta-analysis tests whether the same pattern holds for students’ actual performance on ICT literacy tasks, as measured by performance-based assessments. In total, 46 effect sizes were extracted from 23 empirical studies using a random-effects model. Overall, the gender differences in ICT literacy were significant, positive, and favored girls (g = + 0.12, 95 % CI = [0.08, 0.16]). This effect varied between studies, and moderation analyses indicated that the grade level students were taught at moderated its magnitude—effect sizes were larger in primary school as compared to secondary school. In conclusion, our findings contrast those obtained from previous meta-analyses that were based on self-reported ICT literacy and suggest that the ICT gender gap may not be as severe as it had been claimed to be.