Visuospatial and verbal memory differences between selected male and female adolescents of the STEM strand

Abstract

The project began with the researchers trying to see how each gender assimilates learning based on visuospatial and verbal memory of selected Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) adolescents. The project was based from other studies as well as Bem's Gender Schema Theory. The participants included in this project were from the ages of 16–19 years old in Grades 11 and 12. The researchers used the brain training app Peak to be able to measure each participant's capacity for both visuospatial and verbal memory. After measuring the scores and determining the mean for each gender, there seemed to be no significant advantage found by either gender in both male and females, contrary to most found results from other studies. While the female participants tested did have a better mean score than males on both memory tests, the difference found was not significant enough based on the results of the both two sample z-tests, with the results being −0.43 for visuospatial and 1.63 for verbal, which did not meet the required z-score of 1.645 to reject the null hypothesis. Given the opportunity to have access to more resources and time, the researchers plan to continue the study to include other testing methods and not limited to brain training apps in order to come up with more conclusive findings.