Date Approved

7-2-1998

Embargo Period

9-14-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S. in Teaching

Department

Interdisciplinary and Inclusive Education

College

College of Education

Advisor

Robinson, Randall

Subject(s)

Memory; School children; Sex differences (Psychology) in children

Disciplines

Elementary Education and Teaching

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discover if gender is a significant factor when determining the auditory and visual memory skills of primary grade level students. The study also sought to determine if boys or girls are more able to recall visual or auditory stimuli. Based on the literature related to the subject of gender and memory, differences between males and females vary depending on the tasks performed.

The subjects were taken from first, second and third grade students attending a suburban elementary school in New Jersey. Fifty-two boys and fifty-three girls were subjected to a story on an audio tape then tested to determine their ability to remember the auditory material. Thereafter, forty-six boys and fifty-two girls were exposed to a video tape then tested to determine their ability to remember the material on the video. The tests were separated by gender and graded on a scale from 0 to 9. The mean, median and mode of the boys' auditory tests were determined, as well as the mean, median and mode for the girls' auditory tests. The same statistical procedures were performed for both the boys' and girls' visual tests. A two-way Analysis of Variance was then performed on the scores to ascertain whether a significant difference existed between the boys' scores on the two tests and the girls' scores on the two tests.

Although the boys scored higher on both tests than did the girls, no significant difference was found between the overall scores comparing the two tests in the Analysis of Variance.

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