In her Phys-L post of 4 Oct 2002 12:19:28-0500 titled "Re: MentorNet
(one woman's response)," Vickie Frohne wrote:
FROHNE-FROHNE-FROHNE-FROHNE-FROHNE-FROHNE-FROHNE-FROHNE
". . . here are a lot of "facts" used to debate women-in-science
issues that bear closer examination. I know of NO controlled studies
with statistically significant results that support the following:
a. Women are worse at tasks requiring spatial thinking abilities than men.
b. Spatial thinking skills can't be acquired through practice.
c. Superior spatial thinking abilities are necessary in order to become
scientists or mathematicians.
The following from Mallow & Hake (2002) suggests that "a" tends to be
correct IF the "task" is taking a test of spatial visualization, and
"b" is incorrect:
"Baartmans, B. G. & S. A. Sorby. 1996. 'Introduction to 3-D Spatial
Visualization' (and accompanying Teacher's Resource Manual). Prentice
Hall. On average, males usually score about two standard deviations
above females on spatial visualization tests [Pallrand & Seeber 1984,
Linn & Peterson 1985, Lord 1987, Howe & Doody 1989, Friedman 1995].
This difference is often attributed to cultural factors. Supporting
this assumption, Baartmans & Sorby showed that women engineers at
Michigan Technological University could perform as well as men on
spatial visualization tests if brought up to speed by a one-quarter
(6 hr/week) visualization course based on this text. See also Sorby &
and B. G. Baartmans (1996 a,b)" [See Mallow & Hake (2002) for the
references.]
I doubt that "c" is correct, but, as far as I know, there's little
definitive evidence either pro or con. Indirectly related to this
question, I have (Hake 2002a) shown that the correlation of spatial
visualization ability [as measured by Guay's (1977) well-known test]
with single-student normalized gains "g" [see Hake (2002b) for
references] on conceptual understanding of introductory mechanics is
quite small:
"Table II shows correlations for All, Female, and Male students
between single student's . . . normalized gain g and math, spatial,
and pretest scores . . . . . Among features of interest are . . . .
The correlation
r = + 0.24 between g's and spatial score . . . for all students). . .
would be classed by Cohen as 'small.' It is interesting that the
correlation between female g's and spatial score is a very low +0.06."
Not directly related to spatial visualization, but of possible
interest to those concerned with gender bias in physics instruction,
in Hake (2002a) I wrote:
"A salient result of the present research is the demonstration of
gender disparity in normalized gains [Table I (row 2) and Fig. 1].
The effect size d = 0.68 is not far from the d = 0.8 that Cohen
loosely designates as 'large.'[See Hake (2002b) for the definition of
"d" and relevant references.]
However, this gender effect size is eclipsed by the VERY large d = 2.43
(Hake 2002b) for interactive engagement vs traditional courses in the
survey of Hake (1998a,b). [Seven reasons for this unusually large d
are given in Hake (2002b).] Thus, in my opinion, EFFORT TO INCREASE
THE DEGREE OF EFFECTIVE INTERACTIVE ENGAGEMENT FOR ALL STUDENTS
SHOULD PROBABLY TAKE A HIGHER PRIORITY THAN EFFORT TO REDUCE GENDER
DISPARITY IN FCI <g> VALUES, even despite the deplorable gender
inequity in physics participation (Mallow & Hake 2002)."
Hake, R.R. 2002a. "Relationship of Individual Student Normalized
Learning Gains in Mechanics with Gender, High-School Physics, and
Pretest Scores on Mathematics and Spatial Visualization"; submitted
to the Physics Education Research Conference (PERC 2002); Boise,
Idaho; August 2002; online as ref. 22 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>.
Hake, R.R. 2002b. "Lessons from the physics education reform effort."
Conservation Ecology 5(2): 28; online at
<http://www.consecol.org/vol5/iss2/art28>. "Conservation Ecology," is
a FREE "peer-reviewed journal of integrative science and fundamental
policy research" with about 11,000 subscribers in about 108 countries.
Mallow, J.V. & R.R. Hake. 2002. "Gender Issues in Physics/Science
Education (GIPSE) - Some Annotated References"; online at
<http://www.luc.edu/depts/physics/mallow.html> and
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>: about 300 references and 200
hot-linked URL's.
This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.