Gender differences in mental rotation in Oman and Germany

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Highlights

  • Mental rotation ability which is critical to success in STEM disciplines was investigated in German and Oman students.

  • The results show a significantly better mental rotation performance for the German students.

  • Furthermore, there was an overall gender differences across both cultures, but no possible higher gender difference in Oman.

Abstract

Gender differences in mental rotation often show that males are superior at this task. This study explored gender differences in two nations, which have disparities in their gender equality. While Germany represents a western liberal culture, Oman represents a conservative eastern culture. Students from Germany (119) and Oman (120) completed a mental rotation test, a cognitive processing speed test and a questionnaire of physical activity. The results show a significantly better mental rotation performance for the German students compared to Oman students and an overall gender difference across both cultures. Furthermore, German students outperformed Oman students in cognitive processing speed but there were no gender differences between the cultures. We conclude that mental rotation performance is related to nation, gender and cognitive processing speed. The results are discussed in the frame of how education systems developed in Germany and Oman.

Section snippets

Gender differences in mental rotation in Oman and Germany

Mental rotation is one of the best-investigated cognitive tasks, especially concerning gender differences. It is a mental transformation which describes the ability to imagine two or three-dimensional objects (Shepard & Metzler, 1971). This ability is related to other cognitive domains like problem solving (Geary, Saults, Liu, & Hoard, 2000) and mathematical knowledge (Hegarty & Kozhevnikov, 1999). Mental rotation is also critical to success in STEM disciplines (science, technology,

Participants

Participants were 119 students from one university in Germany, 56 males (mean age 22.89 years, SD = 2.87) and 61 females (mean age 21.56 years, SD = 1.69), and 120 students from one university in Oman, 62 males (mean age 20.79, years, SD = 1.36) and 59 females (mean age 20.20 years, SD = 1.15). The primary field of study of all students was Physical Education. Due to the fact that overweight children show a worse mental rotation performance than normal weight ones (Jansen, Schmelter, Kasten, & Heil, 2011)

Practicing of sports and music

The MANOVA for sports with the dependent variable “years spent practicing sports” revealed significant main effects for the factor “gender”, F(1, 159) = 11.02, p < 0.01, partial η2 = 0.065, and “group”, F(1, 161) = 314.077, p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.66. Males practiced sports for more years than females, and the students in Oman are engaged in sports for a shorter period of time than those in Germany (see Table 1). Concerning the dependent variable “hours of sports practice per week” there was a

Discussion

This study has shown that students in Oman and Germany differ in their mental rotation performance. Gender differences exist in both samples, but there was no interaction between gender and group, which means the Oman group did not have the predicted higher gender effect compared to the German group. Furthermore, in this study physical activity does not relate to mental rotation performance in either sample.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Sandra Kaltner, Jürgen Kittsteiner, Jennifer Lehmann, and Khalifa Alfathi with their help during data collection acquisition. Furthermore, we thank Michel Peters for providing the MRT to us, and for the allowance to create an Arabic Version.

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