Psychology

Psychology

The basic question the paper addresses

The basic question the paper sought to address is to determine whether there was sex differences in the cognitive abilities test scores among pupils in UK.  This study therefore aimed at finding/eliciting the uncertainties on any differences between boys and girls in terms of their IQ type and reasoning abilities tests.

Authors’ Prediction

Based on the national testing in England statistics, the authors predicted that girls outperformed boys. The statistics indicated that at the ages of 7, 11 and 14 years, girls outperformed boys in English assessment. Likewise, at the age of 16, girls still outperformed boys in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (Strand, Deary & Smith, 2006). Therefore, based on the statistics, there was likelihood that girls would perform better than boys in the reasoning and IQ tests.

The participants [number, gender, age, ethnicity

The participants in the study were school children aged between the ages of 11 to 12 years. The children were from UK ethnic background. Both the sample students included boys and girls. The authors used large but representative sample of 320000 children from early secondary school (Strand, Deary & Smith, 2006).

Measures and procedures the researchers use to test their prediction

To test the prediction, the researchers selected a representation sample to enable them come up with better results. The initial dataset was 500000 UK schoolchildren that had completed CAT-third edition. From this dataset, a sample of 320000 schoolchildren was administered the tests.  The sample consisted of first years in the secondary education and therefore they were aged 11-12 years (Strand, Deary & Smith, 2006). The proportion of boys and girls was equally the same, boys made 49.9% of the total sample with girls making 50.1% (Strand, Deary & Smith, 2006). This therefore ruled out the issue of biasness. The children who had completed Cognitive Ability test scores edition three were drawn from both the mainstream and maintained secondary schools in England. This was a measure aimed at ensuring that there was no biasness in the samples. Another measure to ensure that the sample was well represented included the analysis of the national dataset in relation to the selective status of schools.

Furthermore, schools variations were also factors based on key variables such as proportion of ethnic minority in schools, children with English languages as additional language, and whether schools provided free meals to children among others.  A sample of 1046 schools was used which consisted of 30% of school children from maintained schools in England (Strand, Deary & Smith, 2006). This figure underestimates the minority maintained schools because most of these schools were still using CAT edition 2 when the researchers carried out the study.

In administering the tests, the researchers categorized their test into three domains. These domains included assessment of the children on their reasoning abilities in the quantitative reasoning, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. Every domain was assessed by different battery that included three tests. The mean score of every child was calculated based on the three batteries. For example, in the verbal reasoning battery, the questions were classified under the pedigree of verbal classification, sentence completion and verbal analogies. The students were assessed on the answers they gave which were used to evaluate how they reasoned.

The main result confirmed or disconfirmed the prediction. The results revealed that girls scored higher mean score than boys in the verbal reasoning and the non-verbal means scores. However, on the other hand, boys scored higher than girls did in the quantitative battery.  Results also indicated hat there was very small sex differences in mean reasoning scores. The differences were big in verbal reasoning compared to other areas with girls scoring an average 2.2 standard age score more than boys (Strand, Deary & Smith, 2006). This indicated that boys’ performance in verbal was low compared to the girls. For instance, the average verbal reasoning compared to non verbal reasoning differences was 1.3 points more than girls who over performed scoring 0.4 points (Strand, Deary & Smith, 2006). Furthermore, many boys were at the bottom by 5% in verbal reasoning compared to girls. They were also 5% in both top and bottom in non-verbal reasoning and quantitative reasoning (Strand, Deary & Smith, 2006).

One limitation of the study

One of the limitations of the study was the number of sample size.  Even though the researcher cited the reason for the larger sample size as representation, it was a bit larger. The sample size was not that representation because it was bigger and this could compromise the quality of analysis. The researchers could not get the time and resources to analyze the results and even to administer the tests. Testing 320000 children is not easy. The researchers therefore could have selected a sizeable sample that could enable them to carry out their studies better and come out with results that would represent the entire population. The success of a study is not dependant on use of larger samples, but the techniques that are employed to get the samples and analysis techniques.

Reference

Strand, S., Deary, I.J. & Smith, P. (2006).  Sex differences in Cognitive Abilities Test scores: A   UK national picture. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(3):463-480.

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