It's official: Girls worse with technology
Girls score worse in technology as they are not really interested in the subject, but can adapt to the same skills as their male counterparts if required for a job, a new study has claimed.
Researchers at the University of Iowa found that female students score worse in technology tests compared to males in schools, but their poor show has nothing to do with their intelligence and has no impact on job performance.
Young women, according to the researchers, simply aren't interested in the tests, but can adapt to the same skills if required for a job, the Daily Mail reported.
Workplace performance is purely based on intelligence -- smart people are better at any job, as they're better equipped to learn the requirements, they said.
"The factors that are measured by specific aptitude tests don't make any contribution to job performance," study author Professor Frank Schmidt said.
Prof Schmidt, who wanted to know why women and men score differently on technical aptitude in particular, found that at all intelligence levels women score lower on technical aptitude than men at the same intelligence level.
This difference stems from sex differences in interest in technical pursuits, Schmidt suggested.
People who are more interested in technical things-- such as dismantling a bike -- are led to acquire technical experience, which in turn increases technical aptitude scores.
And there may be no easy solution to this, said Schmidt.
"The research shows it is very hard to change people's interests," he said. "They are pretty stable and they form pretty early in life." And using technical aptitude tests as part of a general intelligence test may also cause women to do worse, Professor Schmidt warned.
He suggested that teachers should ensure that technical tests are not a part of general intelligence tests - as these yield distorted results.
"That is quite possible today. You can either not use technical aptitude tests or you can use them and counterbalance them," he said, with tests that women tend to do better on, like verbal tests.
The research was published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.
