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Coding task performance in early adolescence: a large-scale controlled study into boy-girl differences

This study examined differences between boys and girls regarding efficiency of information processing in early adolescence. Three hundred and six healthy adolescents (50.3% boys) in grade 7 and 9 (aged 13 and 15, respectively) performed a coding task based on over-learned symbols. An age effect was...

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Autores principales: Dekker, Sanne, Krabbendam, Lydia, Aben, Aukje, de Groot, Renate, Jolles, Jelle
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3753433/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23986733
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00550
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author Dekker, Sanne
Krabbendam, Lydia
Aben, Aukje
de Groot, Renate
Jolles, Jelle
author_facet Dekker, Sanne
Krabbendam, Lydia
Aben, Aukje
de Groot, Renate
Jolles, Jelle
author_sort Dekker, Sanne
collection PubMed
description This study examined differences between boys and girls regarding efficiency of information processing in early adolescence. Three hundred and six healthy adolescents (50.3% boys) in grade 7 and 9 (aged 13 and 15, respectively) performed a coding task based on over-learned symbols. An age effect was revealed as subjects in grade 9 performed better than subjects in grade 7. Main effects for sex were found in the advantage of girls. The 25% best-performing students comprised twice as many girls as boys. The opposite pattern was found for the worst performing 25%. In addition, a main effect was found for educational track in favor of the highest track. No interaction effects were found. School grades did not explain additional variance in LDST performance. This indicates that cognitive performance is relatively independent from school performance. Student characteristics like age, sex, and education level were more important for efficiency of information processing than school performance. The findings imply that after age 13, efficiency of information processing is still developing and that girls outperform boys in this respect. The findings provide new information on the mechanisms underlying boy-girl differences in scholastic performance.
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spelling pubmed-37534332013-08-28 Coding task performance in early adolescence: a large-scale controlled study into boy-girl differences Dekker, Sanne Krabbendam, Lydia Aben, Aukje de Groot, Renate Jolles, Jelle Front Psychol Psychology This study examined differences between boys and girls regarding efficiency of information processing in early adolescence. Three hundred and six healthy adolescents (50.3% boys) in grade 7 and 9 (aged 13 and 15, respectively) performed a coding task based on over-learned symbols. An age effect was revealed as subjects in grade 9 performed better than subjects in grade 7. Main effects for sex were found in the advantage of girls. The 25% best-performing students comprised twice as many girls as boys. The opposite pattern was found for the worst performing 25%. In addition, a main effect was found for educational track in favor of the highest track. No interaction effects were found. School grades did not explain additional variance in LDST performance. This indicates that cognitive performance is relatively independent from school performance. Student characteristics like age, sex, and education level were more important for efficiency of information processing than school performance. The findings imply that after age 13, efficiency of information processing is still developing and that girls outperform boys in this respect. The findings provide new information on the mechanisms underlying boy-girl differences in scholastic performance. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-08-27 /pmc/articles/PMC3753433/ /pubmed/23986733 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00550 Text en Copyright © 2013 Dekker, Krabbendam, Aben, de Groot and Jolles. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Dekker, Sanne
Krabbendam, Lydia
Aben, Aukje
de Groot, Renate
Jolles, Jelle
Coding task performance in early adolescence: a large-scale controlled study into boy-girl differences
title Coding task performance in early adolescence: a large-scale controlled study into boy-girl differences
title_full Coding task performance in early adolescence: a large-scale controlled study into boy-girl differences
title_fullStr Coding task performance in early adolescence: a large-scale controlled study into boy-girl differences
title_full_unstemmed Coding task performance in early adolescence: a large-scale controlled study into boy-girl differences
title_short Coding task performance in early adolescence: a large-scale controlled study into boy-girl differences
title_sort coding task performance in early adolescence: a large-scale controlled study into boy-girl differences
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3753433/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23986733
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00550
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