GENDER-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN ACADEMICALLY TALENTED STUDENTS SCORES AND USE OF TIME ON TESTS OF SPATIAL ABILITY

Gender-related differences in test scores of spatial ability have been ascribed to a tendency of females to take more time in working on suc h tasks, which is believed to be to their disadvantage in time-limited tests. This hypothesis was examined in a population of academically t alented students who took four subtests on the computer of the Spatial Test Battery of the Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth. Males had higher scores on three of these tests, females on another te st which was a measure of visual memory. Females tended to take more t ime to work on the tests, even when their scores were higher than thos e of males, but this difference was substantial only for two of the te sts. the time taken to work on the items was positively correlated wit h the scores on two of the tests. These results indicate that the amou nt of time taken can neither explain gender-related score differences on spatial tests in general is the habit to use more time necessarily detrimental to test performance. The habit to work quickly or slowly o n spatial tests appeared to be a fairly general characteristic. It see ms to be different from speed of cognitive processing. When asked to g ive ratings on their performance on the tests, females tended to estim ate their scores more modestly than males, although females, like male s, tended to overestimate their performance on two of the measures.