Sex Differences in Aptitude: A study amongst English Medium Students of Delhi

Abstract

Aptitude is one of the psychological construct that is gaining a huge importance in today’s world in helping people choose their career. Over the years, differences have been studied between males and females in various domains. Evidences show that males and females also differ in terms of their abilities. Males are found to have good visuo-spatial ability whereas females are said to have good verbal ability. Thus the purpose of the present study is to compare the cognitive abilities of male and female students. This study is conducted on a total of 438 students including 320 males and 118 females (age range 15-17 years). The cognitive abilities are assessed using David’s Battery of Differential Abilities- Revised Version (DBDA-R) which includes eight subtests. The results show a significant difference in the abilities of males and females in three subtests, i.e., Mechanical Ability, Spatial Ability and Psychomotor Ability. Male students have been found to perform higher in Mechanical and Spatial Ability, whereas female students outperformed in Psychomotor Ability. No significance difference is found in other five abilities. Therefore the present study shows sex-differences in some abilities whereas not in others. This could be related to various factorssuch as differences in brain hemispheres as well as cultural differences which are further discussed in the study.