Spatial Visualization: Is There a Gender Difference?

Terri BennettSouthern CT State University

January 16, 2010

Questions

• What are spatial skills?• Is there a gender difference in spatial skills?• Does spatial ability predict mathematical

ability?• Can the gender gap be decreased?

What are spatial skills?

• “Spatial ability generally refers to skill in representing, transforming, generating, and recalling symbolic, nonlinguistic information.” (Linn and Peterson, 1985)

Categories of spatial tasks (Linn and Peterson, 1985, Halpern, 2000)

• Spatial perception• Spatial visualization• Spatiotemporal ability• Generation and maintenance of a spatial

image• Mental rotation

2-D to 2-D transformation

Decide which of the five shaded pieces can be put together to make the complete whole.

2-D to 3-D transformation

Decide which one of these figures can be made from the pattern shown.

3-D to 2-D transformation

Imagine a cut on each block of wood as shown by the dotted lines. Circle the letter next to the drawing which shows the shape of the cut face.

3-D to 3-D transformation

How many of the smaller blocks on the right are needed to build the larger block on the left?

2-D Mental Rotation

Decide which of the objects to the right of the vertical line is the same as the first object (after you have moved it mentally into different positions).

3-D Mental Rotation

For each pair, decide if the two cubes shown must be the same. No letters appear on more than one face of a given cube.

Mental Rotations Test (MRT)(Vandenburg and Kuse, 1978)

Examine the figure on the left; which two of the four alternatives match it?

Is there a gender difference?

• “Sex differences in achievement in and attitude toward mathematics result from superior male mathematical ability, which may in turn be related to greater male ability in spatial tasks.” (Benbow and Stanley, 1980)

Is there a gender difference?• Size of the sex difference varies by test, with some showing

no statistical difference and the largest gap found on the mental rotation tests. (Halpern, 2000)

• Fail-safe value of 178,205. (Voyer, et.al., 1995)

• Largest differences found in high-ability/low-ability groups. (Casey, Nuttall, et.al., 1995)

• Differences diminish with educational experience. (Richardson, 1994)

Relationship between spatial and mathematical ability

• Spatial ability as measured by the MRT was an important factor in the SAT-M scores for all groups except low-ability high school seniors (Casey, Nuttall, et.al., 1995)

• Correlation between verbal and math ability is higher than the correlation between spatial and math ability (Friedman, 1995)

• Mental rotation ability is a stronger mediator of the gender difference on SAT-M than either math self-confidence or math anxiety. (Casey, et.al. ,1997)

Relationship between spatial and mathematical ability

• Spatial skill level does not affect mathematical performance in males but might in low-ability females (Friedman, 1995, Fennema and Tartre, 1985)

• Spatial ability is a predictor of speed of solution, but math fact retrieval is a predictor of the accuracy of SAT-M performance. (Royer, Garofoli,2005)

Performance Factors

• “I don’t know” removed as an answer. (Linn, De Benedictis, Delucchi, Harris, Stage, 1987)

• Ratio scoring. (Goldstein, et.al., 1990)

• Untimed tests. (Goldstein, et.al., 1990)

• Video Games. (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, 1994)

Conclusions?

• There is a gender difference on some tests that measure spatial visualization skills.

• Spatial ability does not appear to be a predictor of mathematical achievement.

• Spatial ability can be learned through training and experience.

• The way that we test can have an affect on the performance of our students.

BibliographyFriedman, L. (1995) The space factor in mathematics: Gender differences. Review of

Educational Research 65(1), 22-50.

Gallagher, A. and Kaufman, J., Eds. (2005) Gender Differences in Mathematics: An Integrative Psychological Approach.

Halpern, D. (2000). Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities, Third Edition. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Tartre, L. (1990) Spatial Skills, Gender, and Mathematics. In E. Fennema and G. Leder (Eds.) Mathematics and Gender.

Voyer, D., Voyer, S. and Bryden, M. (1995) Magnitude of Sex Differences in Spatial Abilities: A Meta-Analysis and Consideration of Critical Variables. Psychological Bulletin 117, 250-270.

Questions?

home.southernct.edu/~bennettt1/research.html