The effects of gender, ability, and grade on analogy performance

Abstract

We investigated the effects of domain-specific and strategic knowledge on analogy performance for 128 gifted and nongifted sixth grade and high-school students. A cognitive battery consisted of a figural analogy measure, a human biology multiple-choice test, and a human biology analogy task. On the basis of these tasks, we determined that males and females were comparable on all dependent measures, except on A:B::C:? analogy problems in which all terms were drawn from human biology. Further, gifted students consistently outperformed their nongifted peers on all cognitive tasks. There were also significant main effects for grade on all criterion measures with the exception of the addition/deletion items on the strategic knowledge test. Implications of these findings for assessment and instruction of strategic and domain-specific knowledge are offered.