THE ROLES OF EXPERIENCE, GENDER, AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN STATISTICAL REASONING

Abstract

We examine the joint effects of gender and experience on statistical reasoning. Participants with various levels of experience in statistics completed the Statistical Reasoning Assessment (Garfield, 2003), along with individual difference measures assessing cognitive ability and thinking dispositions. Although the performance of both genders improved with experience, the gender gap persisted, with males outperforming females across all experience levels. A confirmatory structural equation model assessing the degree to which cognitive ability, thinking dispositions, and gender account for statistical reasoning performance supported the idea that differences in statistical reasoning are not uniquely a matter of cognitive ability. Rather, gender was found to influence statistical reasoning directly, as well as indirectly through its influence on thinking dispositions.

First published November 2017 at Statistics Education Research Journal Archives