Eastern Kentucky University
Effects of Practice on Gender in Mental Rotations Task Performance
Institution
Eastern Kentucky University
Faculty Advisor/ Mentor
Catherine Clement
Abstract
The present study is designed to partially replicate a study performed by Stericker and LeVesconte (1982). This study will examine the effects of practice on gender differences in spatial tasks. Participants will be male and female psychology undergraduates at Eastern Kentucky University. All participants will complete a pretest and posttest of mental rotation ability. These tests will consist of items from the Stanford Binet "Paper Folding and Cutting" task. Between the pre- and post-tests, half the males and half the females will engage in 20 minutes of spatial task practice by playing the game "Tetris". The remaining subjects will play a non-spatial video game. I expect improvement from pre- to post-test to be greater for practice than no-practice subjects. I also expect that among subjects with no-practice, men will outperform women on both pre- and posttests. For subjects with practice, I expect gender differences on the post-tests will be reduced.
Effects of Practice on Gender in Mental Rotations Task Performance
The present study is designed to partially replicate a study performed by Stericker and LeVesconte (1982). This study will examine the effects of practice on gender differences in spatial tasks. Participants will be male and female psychology undergraduates at Eastern Kentucky University. All participants will complete a pretest and posttest of mental rotation ability. These tests will consist of items from the Stanford Binet "Paper Folding and Cutting" task. Between the pre- and post-tests, half the males and half the females will engage in 20 minutes of spatial task practice by playing the game "Tetris". The remaining subjects will play a non-spatial video game. I expect improvement from pre- to post-test to be greater for practice than no-practice subjects. I also expect that among subjects with no-practice, men will outperform women on both pre- and posttests. For subjects with practice, I expect gender differences on the post-tests will be reduced.