CASE STUDY

Gender and Sense of Direction

Many of you have been there, a classic scene: mom yelling at dad to turn left, while dad decides to just the opposite. Well, who made the right call? More generally, who has a better sense of direction, women or men? Orientation in an Unfamiliar Environment" (Journal of Environmental Psychology, Vol. 20, pp. 17-28).

In their study, the spatial orientation skills of 30 male students and 30 female students from Boston College were challenged in Houghton Garden Park, a wooded park near campus in Newton, Massachusetts. Before driving to the park, the participants were asked to rate their own sense of direction as either good or poor. In the park, students were instructed to point to predesignated landmarks and also to the direction of south. Pointing was carried out by students moving a pointer attached to a protractor; the angle of the pointing response was then recorded to the nearest degree. For the female students who had rated their sense of direction to be good, the following table displays the pointing errors (in degrees) when they attempted to point south.

Based on these data, can you conclude that, in general, women who consider themselves to have a good sense of direction really do better, on average, than they would by randomly guessing at the direction of south? To answer that question, you need to conduct a hypothesis test, which you will do after you study hypothesis testing in this chapter.

Dr. J. Sholl et al. considered these and related questions in the paper "The Relation of Sex and Sense of Direction to Spatial

Again, there is research on the relationship between gender and sense of direction. Recall that, in their study, the spatial orientation skills of 30 male and 30 female students were challenges in a wooded park near the Boston College campus in Newton, Massachusetts. The participants were asked to rate their own sense of direction as either good or poor.

In the park, students were instructed to point to predesignated landmarks and also to the direction of south. For the female students who had rated their sense of direction to be good, the table above provides the pointing errors (in degrees) when they attempted to point south.

1. If, on average, women who consider themselves to have a good sense of direction do not better than they would by just randomly guessing at the direction of south, what would their mean pointing error be?
2. At the 1% significance level, do the data provide sufficient evidence to conclude that women who consider themselves to have a good sense of direction really do better, on average, than they would by just randomly guessing at the direction of south? Use a one-mean t- test.
3. Obtain a normal probability plot, boxplot, or stem-and-leaf diagram of the data. Based on this plot, is use of the t -test reasonable? Explain your answer.

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