A medium gender difference in mental rotation favouring boys exists across adolescence and is already apparent at the beginning of adolescence¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesisr1·q3
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i? Single-paper meta-analysis of mental rotation performance across US, Irish, and Austrian adolescent samples reveals a medium gender difference favouring boys, apparent from the beginning of adolescence. → Buckley 2026
Evidence¶
Buckley 2026¶
Buckley, J., Sorby, S., Duffy, G., Maresch, G., & Power, J. (2026). Gender Differences in Mental Rotation and Visualisation Across Adolescence: Large Scale Evidence from the United States, Ireland, and Austria with Single-Paper Meta-Analyses. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10149-0
q3 · i? · quant-synthesis · r1
Single-paper meta-analysis pooling three large-scale datasets (US multi-cohort panel; Irish and Austrian cross-sectional studies) measuring mental rotation via the PSVT:R and RIF platform. The meta-analysis "reveal[s] medium and small gender differences respectively favouring boys"; no numeric effect size is printed in the available text.
"Single-paper meta-analyses, for both mental-rotation and visualisation tasks, reveal medium and small gender differences respectively favouring boys, with these gender differences already apparent from the beginning of adolescence."
Discussion¶
Learner Variables¶
- Gender — predictor: outcomes differ by group: a gap reflecting circumstances and treatment, not a cause
Related Claims¶
- Age moderates gender differences in both mental rotation and visualisation, with gaps continuing to grow during adolescence — related
- Instrument type moderated the mental rotation gender-difference effect size but not the visualisation effect size — related
- A small gender difference in visualisation favouring boys exists across adolescence and is robust across measurement instruments — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
mental-rotation-gender-gap-adolescence-medium |
title |
A medium gender difference in mental rotation favouring boys exists across adolescence and is already apparent at the beginning of adolescence |
description |
A medium gender difference in mental rotation favouring boys exists across adolescence and is already apparent at the beginning of adolescence |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2026 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-21 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — buckley-2026 |
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