Abstract
The research was conducted to address a conflicting situation that seeks to find out between male and female who are more intelligent? The research was not that broad but pursued to deal with school going teenagers and check on their recall capabilities, basing on their gender. The research has been conducted several times before with different researchers yielding different results. By doing the research, we used direct observation from the available specimens. Observations were made on the answers given by the respondent in the interviews that were conducted by the research team. Through the research, several results were obtained. Among the results achieved were that the male adults were good in numbers. The male remembered most numbers than words. While, on the other hand, female remembered words more than the male. The research left a conclusion that male are better than their female counterparts in recalling numbers while the female are better than the male ones in recalling words and letters. The results implied that male were good in numbers while females were good in words. The research can be applied in normal class activities. The tutors and teachers can use the research to focus on the male and female know the extra work needed when it comes to both male and female.
Gender and memory recall
The information about the level of memory recall differences in male and female is important because it gives the teachers a way to go about their teaching. Knowing what the male and female are good at recalling the teachers get to know how to approach the different issues that they teach in consideration of the gender involved. The information is not just important to the teachers but also to the adults. A student can know that there are areas that they need to put more efforts to be able to recall the specifics than other areas. Recent research and also scholarly works have tried to deal with this concept. It has been argued that for young adults, the memory of girls at recalling events is greater that of boys remembering the same events. (Damon et al. 2006). Gender differences affect the recall capacity of a child (Bauer 2014). Girls have been said to have sharper memory capabilities than the boys as they remember things better than the boys in the same age bracket. The main concept throughout all the research and scholarly works that have been conducted in relations to the topic have been based on finding what gender is good in remembering what. The concept of memory recall has been vastly delved into to as researchers and scholars seek to find the answers pertaining to the different nature of the two genders. The research was conducted through first hand sourcing of information. Secondary sources were also used.
The thesis of the research was those females are good in remembering words than their male counterparts. The male on the other hand are good in remembering numbers than the female. The difference though is not so big and sometimes some male may remember more words than female and also the female may remember numbers more than their male counterparts
Methods
The research included 44 participants. 22 of the participants were boys while the other 22 were girls. The participants were chosen at random but with regard to their gender
The participants were given two lists. One list contained ten words while the other list contained ten numbers the list, words and numbers were as shown below:
The participants were given the above list and asked took at them for thirty second. The second step was taking the lists away from the participants. The participants were then allowed to relax for 30 seconds. Lastly, the participants were given 30 seconds to write what they remembered. The information was then collected to come up with the results.
Results
The marginal means that were calculated showed that both the male and female adults remembered more words than they remembered numbers. In both cases the female adults were seen to have the better memory by remembering more words than boys and also they remembered more numbers than boys. The difference however, is minimal. But the descriptive results suggest that the standard deviation in females on remembering the numbers is lower compared to that of female adults. But when looking at words, the standard deviation of female adults is higher compared to their male counterparts. Most significantly is that the standard deviation difference when analyzing recalling numbers between male to female is greater than the difference in standard deviation when analyzing recall of words between female and male.
Discussion
Male have a good memory when it comes to numbers. The female on the other hand have a higher memory recall when it comes to words. By regarding the standard deviation, one will notice that the when it comes to memory, the girls remembered words most than the boys but the degree of difference is much smaller than when comparing with the standard deviation difference degree of boys to girls when looking at recalling numbers. Young female teenagers are said to remember a lot of words that they have seen well than boys who see the same number of words or hear them somewhere else (May and Hutt 1974). That means that girls are most likely to remember words in a sentence or words they hear more than boys. The research conducted above also showed that for both the genders involved, remembering words more than numbers. The fact that the two genders can remember words in almost the same degree could be used to note the difference between the two genders in memory recall maybe insignificant after all. The argument here can be raised to say that there are not any big differences in the memories of girls and boys the difference however is what they remember best, “The current review suggests that neither sex can be said to have a better memory per se; rather the two sexes differ in terms of what type of information they remember best” (Loftus et al 1987. P, 82).
The research also brought about unexpected issue. By looking at the marginal means and the real means of boys to girls who remembered words and numbers more, it was found out that girls remembered both words and numbers more than boys. According to a journal written in the science fair projects, about a project that was carried to determine the relationship between short term memory and gender, it was found out that girls had a good short term memory than boys.
The results of that project can be used to explain the same result that our research resulted to. The girls remembered most words and numbers more than the boys. The results can be attributed to the fact that the girls had a good short term memory than the boys. The mean of girls was greater to boys in both the two cases but the standard deviation rebuffed the idea that girls may have a superior memory. Girls however have a better short term memory than boys. It should also be noted that as much as the differences are noticeable they are also not significant. According to the science fair project, the difference is 1.2% which in itself is insignificant. There were also cases of deviations in the case study. The deviations will be used to mean that the fact that a kid is of the female gender doesn’t mean that they will remember words better than boys. It should be noted that there are also other factors that have not been discussed in the above research that may influence the memory of a person.
The research was a clear indication there are differences in the memories recalling capability between boys and girls. But what is more alarming is the standard deviation when it comes to numbers rather than words. The standard deviation of how boys remembered numbers to how girls remembered cannot be ignored. It should be noted that the number of words were the same as the number of numbers in the two lists. If girls are good at remembering words and boys are good at remembering numbers, the standard deviation difference should be equal or close but on the contrary, the difference is rather great. Girls can be said to have a bigger problem when it comes to numbers than the problems boys have when it comes to remembering words.
In conclusion, the above research has proved that generally, girls are good at remembering words they hear or see than boys. On the other hand, boys are good at remembering numbers than girls. Generally, females have a high ability to remember the words they see. Female are also said to have a better short term memory than boys. Girls remember easily what they have just recently seen. It should also be noted that as much as there are differences in the recalling nature of different gender the difference is totally insignificant and there are also other factors that were held constant in the research that may affect the memory recall nature of a person. Finally, the two genders are equal in their memory capacity the slight difference however is in the way they recall different aspects about what they saw or heard also the difference may be on what they exactly recall.
References
Bauer, J.P. 2007. Remembering the times of our lives: memory in infancy and beyond. Psychology press.
Damon, W., Merner, R., Kuhn. D. and Siegler, R. 2006. Handbook of Child Psychology; cognition perception and language. John Wiley & sons.
Craik, M.F. 2000. The oxford handbook of memory. Oxford university press.
Loftus, E.F., Banaji, M.R., Schooler, J.W. and Foster, R. (1987). Who Remembers What? Gender Difference in Memory. Michigan. Quarterly review, 26(64-85)
All science fair project (2014). Examining the relationship Between Gender and Short Term Memory. www.all-science-fair-project.com>>educationlearning
