BY DEREK W. WINTERS
The purpose of this study was to examine how and when gender differences develop in the learning and remembering of verbal information. The participants were 410 girls and 401 boys that ranged in age from 5 to 16 years. All of the participants were given the California Verbal Learning Test- Children's Version. The test included recalling words immediately after being presented (5 trials), after being presented interference words (1 trial), and after a 20 minute delay (1 trial). A number of analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to evaluate the data. The alpha level was set at .01 for all statistical tests. At all age levels the girls were significantly more able to recall words from the lists. On another trial, the children were asked to respond either yes or no as to whether or not a word had been given to them on the target list or a distracter list. Once again the girls scored significantly higher. The data also indicated that the girls used semantic clustering strategies more than the boys. Prior to the word recall and recognition trails, the children had taken tests for vocabulary. The boys scores were significant compared to the girls. This suggests that all verbal ability cannot be linked to gender differences. The results indicate that girls' verbal learning is more efficient and they employ different mechanisms in the process.
REFERENCE
Kramer, J.H., Delis, D.C., Kaplan, E., O'Donnell, L., & Prifitera, A. (1997). Developmental sex differences in verbal learning. Neuropsychology, 11(4), 577-584.