The relation between childhood spatial activities and spatial abilities in adulthood
Highlights
► We examined the relationship between childhood activities and adult cognitive performance. ► We validated the Childhood Activities Questionnaire. ► Spatial and masculine activities participation correlated with spatial performance. ► Gender had a significant effect on spatial and masculine activities participation. ► Activities predicted spatial scores and math grades over and above gender effects.
Section snippets
Gender, childhood activities, and spatial abilities
Sarama and Clements (2009) noted that an interaction between inborn capabilities and environmental inputs contribute to the development of an individual's spatial abilities. In fact, numerous biological, psychological, and social accounts have been proposed to explain gender differences in spatial ability, including the role of sex hormones (Berenbaum, Korman, & Leveroni, 1995), maturation (Sanders & Soares, 1986), gender-role identity (Signorella & Jamison, 1978), and experience with spatial
Childhood Activities Questionnaires
One issue with previous studies investigating gender differences in childhood activities is their use of questionnaires based primarily on subjective or ranked gender-typed and spatial activities. Previous studies also favored the use of dichotomous categories in classifying activities (i.e., masculine or feminine, spatial or non-spatial). In developing their spatial activities questionnaire, Newcombe et al. (1983) initially used inductive reasoning in order to develop a list of 231 activities
Hypotheses
This study was guided by two hypotheses: Hypothesis I It was hypothesized that the pattern of correlations would support the validity of the new questionnaire. Specifically, the finding of positive correlations between masculine and spatial activities participation and measures relevant to spatial abilities (MRT, WLT, average grades in high school math courses) would reflect convergent validity. In addition, it was expected that the correlations between masculine and spatial activities participation, and
Participants
A total of 403 participants were tested at two testing sites: a sample from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, USA, included 206 participants (70 males, 136 females; mean age = 19.40 years, SD = 2.14), and a sample from the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, included 197 participants (63 males, 134 females; mean age = 19.85 years, SD = 4.01).
Participants from Creighton University were mostly Caucasian (83.0%) or Asian (8.7%). Concerning the setting in which they grew
Preliminary analysis
Considering that the activities questionnaire relies on participants' memory of childhood activities, it would be plausible to argue that these memories would fade with age. Thus, older participants should be excluded, as their memories might not be as accurate as their younger counterparts. In order to determine a cutoff age for such exclusion, the distribution was examined for outliers, with ages three standard deviations below or above the mean defined as outliers. This allowed the
Discussion
The goal of the current study was to demonstrate the relation between childhood spatial activities and adult performance in spatial tasks. This also encompassed the need to establish the criterion-related validity of the Childhood Activities Questionnaire developed by Cherney and Voyer (2010). Face validity was previously established as Cherney and Voyer developed their questionnaire using childhood activities from past measures (Bates and Bentler, 1973, Newcombe et al., 1983, Signorella et
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Etta Brodersen, Susan Voyer, Kaitlyn Fallow, Lisa Plant, Hannah Grawe, Nicole Schmidt, Jack Kostal and Christopher Culhane for their help with data collection and scoring. The work presented here was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Postgraduate Scholarship awarded to R. Doyle, an NSERC Discovery Grant awarded to D. Voyer, and a Creighton Graduate School Grant awarded to I. Cherney.
References (49)
- et al.
Environmental input to the development of sex-related differences in spatial and mathematical ability
Learning and Individual Differences
(1995) - et al.
Early hormones and sex differences in cognitive abilities
Learning and Individual Differences
(1995) - et al.
Mental rotation at 7 years: Relations with prenatal testosterone levels and spatial play experience
Brain and Cognition
(1995) - et al.
Stereotype threat, identity salience, and spatial reasoning
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
(2006) Are males always better than females in mental rotation? Exploring a gender belief explanation
Learning and Individual Differences
(2009)- et al.
Sex differences in cognition: The role of testosterone and sexual orientation
Brain and Cognition
(1999) - et al.
A redrawn Vandenberg and Kuse mental rotations test: Different versions and factors that affect performance
Brain and Cognition
(1995) - et al.
Sexual orientation and visuo-spatial ability
Brain and Cognition
(1986) Gender identification moderates stereotype threat effects on women's math performance
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
(2002)- et al.
Testing the prenatal androgen hypothesis: Measuring digit ratios, sexual orientation, and spatial abilities in adults
Hormones and Behavior
(2005)
Stereotype susceptibility in children: Effects of identity activation on quantitative performance
Psychological Science
Sex differences in visual–spatial performance among Ghanaian and Norwegian adults
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
The role of experience in spatial test performance: A meta-analysis
Sex Roles
The essential difference: The male and female brain
Phi Kappa Phi Forum
Play activities of normal and effeminate boys
Developmental Psychology
Do task and sex differences influence the visual evoked potential?
Psychophysiology
The influence of spatial ability on gender differences in mathematics college entrance test scores across diverse samples
Developmental Psychology
Women's underrepresentation in science: Sociocultural and biological considerations
Psychological Bulletin
Mom, let me play more computer games: They improve my mental rotation skills
Sex Roles
Gender-linked differences in the toys, television shows, computer games, and outdoor activities of 5- to 13-year-old children
Sex Roles
Development of a spatial activity questionnaire I: Items identification
Sex Roles
Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences
Sex differences in imagery and reading
Nature
Committee on Early Childhood Mathematics; National Research Council
Cited by (44)
Designing equitable STEM education: Guidelines for parents, educators and policy-makers to reduce gender/racial achievement gaps
2022, International Encyclopedia of Education: Fourth EditionDoubling mental rotation scores in high school students: Effects of motivational and strategic trainings
2021, Learning and InstructionCitation Excerpt :To close this gap, the present research will consider high school students and test the efficacy of three kinds of trainings in raising mental rotation scores based on (a) allowing practice in adopting a holistic strategy to solve the mental rotation items, (b) favoring the development of motivational beliefs, or (c) both: strategic and motivational training. Experience with spatial tasks, sports, or toys (e.g., Moè, Jansen, & Pietsch, 2018; Doyle, Voyer, & Cherney, 2012; Ginn & Pickens, 2005; Gold et al., 2018), number of performed masculine activities (e.g., carpentry, making objects, building train/car set; Flaberty, 2005), attending a high school with many spatial subjects (Moè, 2016b), or majoring in a STEM degree (Moè, Hausmann, & Hirnstein, 2021) are all factors favoring mental rotation abilities. This suggest that practice with spatial tasks is important, probably because it fosters the use of effective strategies and sustains motivational aspects.
The role of spatial abilities in young children's spatially-focused touchscreen game play
2021, Cognitive DevelopmentCitation Excerpt :Gender is also often considered in explaining variability in spatial skills, with some research suggesting that gender differences in spatial skills emerge as early as infancy (Levine et al., 1999; Linn & Petersen, 1985; Moore & Johnson, 2011). Moreover, the persistence of this gender gap throughout childhood may be attributed to boys engaging in more physical and digital spatial play than girls (Caldera et al., 1999; Coyle & Liben, 2020; Doyle, Voyer, & Cherney, 2012; Newcombe, 1982). For example, an earlier study examining the connection between children’s prior video game experience, their spatial abilities, and their performance on a novel video game found that boys had stronger spatial skills, more video game experience, and performed better on the novel video game than girls (Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 1994).
Title IX and the spatial content of female employment—Out of the lab and into the labor market
2019, Labour EconomicsCitation Excerpt :Thus they conclude “…this finding confirms the hypothesis that males likely spent more time in masculine-spatial activities as a child, whereas females spent more time in feminine-non-spatial activities” (p. 96). While a relationship between sports and spatial ability is widely acknowledged, much of the existing evidence is correlational, comparing the spatial abilities of different types of athletes, and of athletes to non athletes (e.g. Ozel et al., 2004; Doyle et al., 2012, Notarnicola et al., 2014; Voyer and Jansen, 2017 provide a review). An exception is Moreau et al. (2012) who investigate the impact of the practice of wrestling and running on performance in mental rotation tasks.
Childhood preference for spatial toys. Gender differences and relationships with mental rotation in STEM and non-STEM students
2018, Learning and Individual DifferencesCitation Excerpt :An additional factor could be the nature of the activity: feminine (e.g. baby dolls) vs. masculine (e.g., cars and trucks). Based on the questionnaire developed by Cherney and Voyer (2010) Doyle, Voyer, and Cherney (2012), assessed the relations of preference for masculine vs. feminine spatial vs. non-spatial activities with mental rotation and found positive correlations with four spatial-masculine activities (blocks, cars and trucks, construction, Lego) and only one feminine non-spatial activity (drawing 2D). Most of the spatial activities are masculine and most of the non-spatial are feminine (Cherney & Voyer, 2010).