How Does Gender Affect Multitasking?

Overview

Objectives/Goals Objective: The Objective is to determine whether gender plays a role in a humans multitasking ability. Methods/Materials Materials & Methods: Consent Forms were collected from 50 random subjects who patronized the public library and agreed to be a part of the study. These subjects were divided between 25 females and 25 males. Each subject was given a book review; paper, two pens, and a reminder card to supply instructions. All subjects were asked to copy down the given book review word for word. However, subjects also had to listen to a recording that read a script. Subjects had to keep count of how many times the word #old# was said. In addition, a bell rang every 30 seconds, this bell meant for subjects to switch pens. Data was then collected. Productivity (number of words copied and number of times #old# was recorded) and accuracy was recorded from subjects. Results Results: Females had a mean score of 102.92 words copied from the book review compared to the male#s mean score of 79.76 words copied from the book review. Females also had a mean score of 2.68 spelling mistakes when copying the book review compared to the male#s mean score of 8.12 spelling mistakes. This then shows that females are more productive and accurate when faced with a visual task. In the audio task of recording the word #old,# females also had a mean score of about 80% of #old#s recorded compared to the male#s mean score of about 75% of #old#s recorded. However, regarding the kinesthetic task of switching pens, there was no difference. Both genders had a mean score of 100% switched pens. Conclusions/Discussion Discussion: It was observed that women were superior when multitasking. This may be because of the womens wider corpus callosum in the brain. This wider connection between the hemispheres may allow more information to pass in the females brain than in the male#s brain. Therefore, females can switch through thoughts faster than males can. However, these multitasking skills also might have been acquired through the females everyday life. Females are known to multitask daily in their home lives; therefore, this constant practice might have given their gender the edge. In addition, it was observed that subjects with low education had a higher score than subjects with high education. This may be because subjects with high education read with a goal of comprehending the text; therefore, they might write slower.

Awards (1)

• Honorable Mention

Competition history

• CSEF 2012 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0408

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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