Sex differences in tech tilt: Support for investment theories

Persistent gender differences in spatial ability, even in STEM experts

Background

Spatial ability (SA) shows wide variability. One proposed explanation for the observed individual difference in SA is variability in interest and engagement in activities that promote spatial ability. Research also robustly shown that males on average outperform females in most aspects of SA. Previous studies have identified a number of activities that can potentially contribute to both individual and gender differences in SA, including tinkering with electronics, particular sports activities, and designing. However, the findings regarding these links are inconsistent. One way to investigate these links is to compare the groups that are intensively engaged with these activities.

Aim

The present study aims to evaluate the robustness of these links by comparing SA in adolescents with expertise in STEM, arts, and sports, with their unselected peers. We also aimed to assess whether gender differences in SA are still present in expert groups.

Methods

The data on ten small-scale SA tests was collected in an unselected sample of adolescents (N = 864, Mean age = 15.4, SD = 1.1); as well as in 3 samples of adolescents with expertise in STEM (N = 667, Mean age = 15, SD = 1.2); in Arts (N = 280, Mean age = 15, SD = 1.2) and in Sports (N = 444, Mean age = 14.3, SD = 0.7).

Results

Out of the three expert groups, only STEM experts on average outperformed the unselected group on all SA tasks. The STEM experts also outperformed Arts and Sports experts. Gender differences persisted in all expert groups, with moderate effect sizes.

Discussion

Findings support previously established links between spatial ability and STEM-related expertise. In contrast, such links were not found for expertise in arts and sports. Consistent with previous research, we found gender differences in SA for all samples, which persisted in STEM experts.

Exploring the Relationship between Cognitive Ability Tilt and Job Performance

Most of the work examining the relationship between intelligence and job performance has conceptualized intelligence as g. Recent findings, however, have supported the claim that more specific factors of intelligence contribute to the prediction of job performance. The present study builds upon prior work on specific cognitive abilities by investigating the relationship between ability tilt, a measure representing differential strength between two specific abilities, and job performance. It was hypothesized that ability tilt would differentially relate to job performance based on whether or not the tilt matched the ability requirements of the job, and that ability tilt would provide incremental validity over g and specific abilities for predicting performance when the tilt matched job requirements. Hypotheses were tested using a large sample from the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) database. Ability tilt related with job performance in the expected direction for 27 of the 36 tilt-job combinations examined, with a mean effect size of .04 when the tilt matched job requirements. The mean incremental validities for ability tilt were .007 over g and .003 over g and specific abilities, and, on average, tilt explained 7.1% of the total variance in job performance. The results provide limited evidence that ability tilt may be a useful predictor in addition to ability level, and contribute to our understanding of the role of specific abilities in the workplace.