Sex Differences in Rote-Counting Ability on Entry to First Grade: Some Observations

Abstract

Currently, the issue of sex differences in mathematical abilities is of great concern. This article focuses on one early number skill: rote counting. Almost a century of research has produced equivocal results. These discrepancies might be accounted for by differences in methodology and data analysis. This report presents data on sex differences in rote-counting ability and illustrates how different data-gathering methods and different statistical treatments of the data can yield different results. Almost a century ago G. Stanley Hall (1891) included specific number skills in his survey of the content of children's minds on entering school and concluded: girls excel in space concepts and boys in numbers (p. 143). Illustrative of the findings on which this observation was based are the data on 660 boys and 652 girls entering schools in Annaberg, Germany, between 1881 and 1884. There, 69% of the boys and 62% of the girls could count by rote to 10 on entry to first grade. These were hardly grounds for an unequivocal generalization about boys being superior to girls in number abilities, but a slight trend appeared discernible. Nearly 50 years later, Buckingham and MacLatchy (1930) surveyed the number abilities of children entering Grade 1. They concluded that the 6-year-old girls consistently surpassed the 6-year-old boys in counting abilities. However, a higher percentage of boys than girls counted to 100. Recent research on similarities and differences between boys and girls on early counting has been inconclusive and inconsistent in its findings. No differences during the preschool or early school years have been reported in a number of reports and reviews (e.g., Brace & Nelson, 1965; Fuson, Richards, & Briars, 1982; Maccoby, 1966; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; Mitchell, 1981; Tavris & Offir, 1977). Performance differences favoring girls have been reported by Aiken (1971) and Rea and Reys (1970). The Gesell Institute's position remains that differences between boys and girls do exist during early school years and that girls' performance tends to be more advanced (Ames, Gillespie, Haines, & Ilg, 1976). Although data on similarities and differences between boys and girls on