Gender influence on PAT

[misty818]

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This is a random question, but anyone know if there is any data out there to support that males score higher on the PAT than females? I was showing my brother and father some practice questions and they were doing better than me despite not having any practice. I've heard males naturally have better spatial awareness and perceptual ability, but don't know how much truth there is to that.

 

[ushaseos]

I don't think something like this is the case. Maybe your father and brother have worked on things that required visualization. To give you an example, when I was prepping for the DAT and going over a CDP test while tutoring, one of my students was able to answer the questions faster than me. Its because he worked a LOT on his newly acquired car and a lot of times, you can't really see the parts you're dealing with, especially when working on the innards of the car.

If it is any consolation, I know two girls from my undergrad who applied to Dental school last cycle and they both scored higher than me on PAT (I got a 23, and their scores were 24 and 27). Regardless, who cares, I am pretty sure there is no conspiracy to keep females out of Dentistry 😛

 

[AlbinoPolarBear]

This is the latest data I could find to your question. It's for the 2009 test takers, but it does show some significance difference between male and female PAT scores.

www.ada.org/sections/educationAndCareers/pdfs/dat_users_manual.pdf

Go to table 21 and you'll see the data supports your assumption. It's page 35/49 if you want to jump to that page.

The average PAT score for females was 17.52, while the average score for males was 18.83. That's over a point difference...

 

[KittySquared]

That's the stereotype. If you believe that stereotype, you're more likely to do worse and not max out your potential for that section. Women do poorly in math/sciences partly due to their upbringing. Society will tell you that as a woman, you're less likely to succeed in math/sciences. That belief can take its toll. Women who believe they can do better in said subjects statistically have much higher scores than women who are persuaded by the stereotypes.

I scored above a 20 on the PAT section despite having terrible astigmatism in both eyes and see shadows following every line on a computer, esp angle ranking. I personally also know one girl in dental school who scored a 25, and another scored 26 who is now a practicing dentist.

Your spatial abilities can be trained and your brain will learn rather quickly if you let it. I used CrackDAT PAT and did about 5 complete tests and my score went from 17s, 18s to exclusively 21+ within only 2 weeks of practicing. If a blind cat like me as I can score 21+, anybody can.




*Banking on some hater on SDN to say 21 isn't good enough.

 

[misty818]

I'm not asking this question to justify my shortcomings in any way, or to call out the PAT as some sort of conspiracy. I'm merely asking this question out of curiosity. And of course females can succeed on the PAT; without a doubt there are specific cases when both males and females do extremely well. I was wondering if there was any statistically significant discrepancy between males and females on the PAT.

 

[Parklife]

I was expecting a far dirtier tone to this thread. 😳

Interesting that males score higher than females. Wonder if that's why we have so many female DH.

JK JK JK JK JK JK JK!

 

[misty818]

This is going to spark some controversy, but I really do think males (overall) are more intelligent (and have a greater capacity for intelligence) than females. Feminists, feel free to attack me.

 

[diene]

This is going to spark some controversy, but I really do think males (overall) are more intelligent (and have a greater capacity for intelligence) than females. Feminists, feel free to attack me.

😳 😳 😳 😳 😳

While I agree the men and women have their own strengths due to the gender difference, it is unfair to suggest that men are more intelligent. Aside from the 1 point higher average on the PAT (which is hardly about intelligence), is there a reason why you are making this claim? :X

 

[Parklife]

This is going to spark some controversy, but I really do think males (overall) are more intelligent (and have a greater capacity for intelligence) than females. Feminists, feel free to attack me.

Damn.

 

[Enter name here]

Women who can cook>Intelligence

 

[ushaseos]

This is going to spark some controversy, but I really do think males (overall) are more intelligent (and have a greater capacity for intelligence) than females. Feminists, feel free to attack me.

I am really really hoping that was sort of joke or intentional provocation. If its not you're discouraging yourself without a solid basis. Just get a 20+ who cares if one gender can do PAT better?

 

[KittySquared]

This is going to spark some controversy, but I really do think males (overall) are more intelligent (and have a greater capacity for intelligence) than females. Feminists, feel free to attack me.

 

[misty818]

Personal experience. Haven't looked into any research to actually support or refute my claim, so I can't give any strong argument. That said, at my undergrad, it certainly seemed as though the very top-scorers in my classes were men. At graduation, men also received about 90% of the awards in biology, Chem, phys, engineering though the gender distribution is split pretty evenly in these departments (minus engineering).

 

[finchy86]

This is the latest data I could find to your question. It's for the 2009 test takers, but it does show some significance difference between male and female PAT scores.

www.ada.org/sections/educationAndCareers/pdfs/dat_users_manual.pdf

Go to table 21 and you'll see the data supports your assumption. It's page 35/49 if you want to jump to that page.

The average PAT score for females was 17.52, while the average score for males was 18.83. That's over a point difference...

Not to get all statistical but who is to say that there is any significance in this data. Although, it may appear that men score higher than women on the PAT in general we have no information whether it is that big a difference or not.

 

[SmilingTooth]

Not to get all statistical but who is to say that there is any significance in this data. Although, it may appear that men score higher than women on the PAT in general we have no information whether it is that big a difference or not.

👍
no significance = Faulty logic 😱

 

[diene]

Personal experience. Haven't looked into any research to actually support or refute my claim, so I can't give any strong argument. That said, at my undergrad, it certainly seemed as though the very top-scorers in my classes were men. At graduation, men also received about 90% of the awards in biology, Chem, phys, engineering though the gender distribution is split pretty evenly in these departments (minus engineering).

I bet the ratio of men in those fields was greater as well 😉 I can imagine physics and engineering being 20 men to 1 woman

 

[misty818]

Nope, not an my undergraduate institution. Women make up roughly 40% of the engineering department.

 

[Stacker]

No?

 

[AlbinoPolarBear]

Not to get all statistical but who is to say that there is any significance in this data. Although, it may appear that men score higher than women on the PAT in general we have no information whether it is that big a difference or not.

These are the data, believe as you will.

But of course it depends on the individual person on what their target score is. There are people who score higher and people who score lower, but the average is the average.

I used CDP religiously and scored a 24. If I got only the average male score of 19 on PAT, I would have head butted the computer screen.

 

[finchy86]

These are the data, believe as you will.

But of course it depends on the individual person on what their target score is. There are people who score higher and people who score lower, but the average is the average.

I used CDP religiously and scored a 24. If I got only the average male score of 19 on PAT, I would have head butted the computer screen.

I don't recall Prometric saying you couldn't headbutt the screen .

 

[FaithBuild18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_humans

Yeah yeah, wikipedia, I know. But I still wonder why the majority of left-leaning sociologists completely ignore the biological differences between males and females.

After completing my undergrad, I concluded that the social sciences are about as much real science as modern art is real art.

 

[Blue87Fiero]

The average PAT score for females was 17.52, while the average score for males was 18.83. That's over a point difference...

someone do a chi squared test to see if this is a significant difference or due to chance alone... the funny part is you all know what I am talking about 🙂

 

[yellowishbluish]

This is the latest data I could find to your question. It's for the 2009 test takers, but it does show some significance difference between male and female PAT scores.

www.ada.org/sections/educationAndCareers/pdfs/dat_users_manual.pdf

Go to table 21 and you'll see the data supports your assumption. It's page 35/49 if you want to jump to that page.

The average PAT score for females was 17.52, while the average score for males was 18.83. That's over a point difference...

Not to get all statistical but who is to say that there is any significance in this data. Although, it may appear that men score higher than women on the PAT in general we have no information whether it is that big a difference or not.

P value and statistical significance:
The two-tailed P value is less than 0.0001
By conventional criteria, this difference is considered to be extremely statistically significant.

Confidence interval:
The mean of Group One minus Group Two equals -1.3100
95% confidence interval of this difference: From -1.4056 to -1.2144

Intermediate values used in calculations:
t = 26.9309
df = 13689
standard error of difference = 0.049

Learn more:
GraphPad's web site includes portions of the manual for GraphPad Prism that can help you learn statistics. First, review the meaning of P values and confidence intervals. Next check whether you chose an appropriate test. Then learn how to interpret results from an unpaired or paired t test. These links include GraphPad's popular analysis checklists.

Review your data:
Group Group One Group Two
Mean 17.5200 18.8300
SD 2.8300 2.8600
SEM 0.0345 0.0342
N 6717 6974



it's nature vs. nurture folks

this has been covered in every bio class we've taken

we're not perfectly equal in every single way nor would these slight disposition differences really hinder you if you worked harder at it

 

[FaithBuild18]

someone do a chi squared test to see if this is a significant difference or due to chance alone... the funny part is you all know what I am talking about 🙂

This post is a win.

 

[baby tooth]

This is going to spark some controversy, but I really do think males (overall) are more intelligent (and have a greater capacity for intelligence) than females. Feminists, feel free to attack me.

Personal experience. Haven't looked into any research to actually support or refute my claim, so I can't give any strong argument. That said, at my undergrad, it certainly seemed as though the very top-scorers in my classes were men. At graduation, men also received about 90% of the awards in biology, Chem, phys, engineering though the gender distribution is split pretty evenly in these departments (minus engineering).

🤣 I decided to google your opinion, and this is the first thing I came across: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ist/200901/why-men-are-more-intelligent-women

According to this article: "...once we control for height, women are slightly but significantly more intelligent than men...it is not that men are more intelligent than women, but that taller people are more intelligent than shorter people, but net of height women are more intelligent than men. Women who are 5'10" are on average more intelligent than men who are 5'10", and women who are 5'5" are on average more intelligent than men who are 5'5". But, more importantly, people who are 5'10" are significantly more intelligent than people who are 5'5", and most people who are 5'10" are men and most people who are 5'5" are women."

Interesting. But a gain of .4 of an IQ point for every inch in height is really a very small correlation in human IQ and height. That's saying that on average there's a 2 point difference in IQ between people who are 5'10 and 5'5. Significant? Sure. But overall, those 2 points aren't going to make a difference in what someone is capable of achieving.

 

[diasIItema]

I'm 5'8" (male) and my IQ has consistently been recorded in the 98-99 percentile since I was in pre-school. Height is correlated with intelligence just b/c it correlates to health. Taller people (outside of genetics) are generally healthier when they're young, and therefore develop better myelinated axons, etc. Just what I was taught in a Psychology course.

As far as the male/female disparity, I believe the research paints that women are consistently more intelligent than men on the whole. However, there are far more male geniuses and imbeciles (outdated term) than women. So, yes, male populations tend to have greater capacity for intelligence, but also idiocy.

There are 10 more women in my class than men, the first time there have ever been more women than men. We're only through Gross and Neuroanatomy, but so far almost all of the individuals at the top of the class are male. I don't think it really has to do with intelligence, though. Women just need to learn how to chill the f out and stop stressing about EVERYTHING.

 

[baby tooth]

There are 10 more women in my class than men, the first time there have ever been more women than men. We're only through Gross and Neuroanatomy, but so far almost all of the individuals at the top of the class are male. I don't think it really has to do with intelligence, though. Women just need to learn how to chill the f out and stop stressing about EVERYTHING.

I agree that the whole doing well in school thing doesn't have that much to do with intelligence. I'd argue that it has to do with how effectively someone studies (based on how that individual learns and what their fastest way of learning the material is). Stressing out and freaking out is only going to decrease the effectiveness of one's studying, so I agree with you there as well, but I don't think that stressing out over things is an inherently female thing.

 

[wcombs]

From personal experience (no scientific support, absolutely no weight behind what I'm about to say, just what I've seen in my lifetime), I'm of the belief that men and women both have advantages over the opposite gender in certain areas of learning. I do think men are generally more inclined to spatial tasks like the PAT, and from personal experience I've found women can generally memorize and retain information better than men. I don't think the difference is significant, but I think some people are possibly narrow minded (and too quick to take offense) to think male and female brains are built identically and have the exact same intellectual capacities.

 

[Blue87Fiero]

P value and statistical significance:
The two-tailed P value is less than 0.0001
By conventional criteria, this difference is considered to be extremely statistically significant.

Confidence interval:
The mean of Group One minus Group Two equals -1.3100
95% confidence interval of this difference: From -1.4056 to -1.2144

Intermediate values used in calculations:
t = 26.9309
df = 13689
standard error of difference = 0.049

Learn more:
GraphPad's web site includes portions of the manual for GraphPad Prism that can help you learn statistics. First, review the meaning of P values and confidence intervals. Next check whether you chose an appropriate test. Then learn how to interpret results from an unpaired or paired t test. These links include GraphPad's popular analysis checklists.

Review your data:
Group Group One Group Two
Mean 17.5200 18.8300
SD 2.8300 2.8600
SEM 0.0345 0.0342
N 6717 6974



it's nature vs. nurture folks

this has been covered in every bio class we've taken

we're not perfectly equal in every single way nor would these slight disposition differences really hinder you if you worked harder at it

I love this.... this gets a huge 👍👍👍👍