Scaffolding Strategy and Gender Influence in Learning Social Psychology Concepts

Abstract

The concept of scaffolding has consistently been a widely explored subject in the field of educational psychology. Though a great number of research had been done in science education, there was little known about social science. To address this gap, the current study examined the interplay between gender and scaffolding on students learning of social psychology concepts. One hypothesis was that women would do better in understanding the target concept of the mere exposure effect than men did. Another hypothesis was that participants who were exposed to the scaffolding scenario designed to provide prior knowledge would be more resilient to learning the concept. In a sample of 47 young learners recruited online, aged from under 18 to 26, an anonymous online survey was used to test participants comprehension, and the results were interpreted using ANOVA analysis. Unfortunately, the results showed no significant effects of gender and scaffolding on participants understanding of the given concept. Further discussion about the possible influential factors and suggestions for future research were mentioned at the end.