Exploring the Mechanisms Underlying Gender Differences in Statistical Reasoning: A Focus on Experience and Individual Differences

• Activity Number: 135
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 5, 2013 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Nadia Martin*+ and Jonathan Fugelsang
• Companies: University of Waterloo and University of Waterloo
• Keywords: statistical reasoning ; thinking dispositions ; cognitive ability ; gender differences ; experience

Abstract

With the growing amount of data the average citizen is now confronted to, research on statistical reasoning has become increasingly prominent. Two key factors that have emerged as influencing performance in statistics are gender differences and the effect of experience or training. Surprisingly, though, the combined effects of these two variables have not been studied. This gap in understanding the joint effect of gender and experience on statistical reasoning is addressed in the present study. Participants with various levels of experience in statistics were asked to complete the Statistical Reasoning Assessment (Garfield, 2003). Although the performance of both genders improved with experience, the gender gap persisted across all experience levels. Multiple measures of individual differences were used in a confirmatory structural equation model. This model supported the idea that differences in statistical reasoning are not uniquely a matter of cognitive ability. In fact, gender was found to influence statistical reasoning directly, as well as indirectly through its influence on thinking dispositions, as suggested by Stanovich's (2009) model of reasoning.