Sex differences in latent cognitive abilities ages 6 to 59: Evidencefrom the Woodcock—Johnson III tests of cognitive abilities

摘要

Sex differences in the latent general and broad cognitive abilities underlying the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilitieswere investigated for children, youth, and adults ages 6 through 59. A developmental, multiple indicator–multiple cause, structuralequation model was used to investigate sex differences in latent cognitive abilities as well as developmental changes in thesedifferences across the 6 to 59 age span. Females showed a consistent advantage on the latent processing speed (Gs) factor, and malesshowed a small, consistent advantage on the latent comprehension–knowledge (Gc) factor. Males also showed an advantage on latentquantitative reasoning (RQ) and visual–spatial ability (Gv) factors at most ages, although the latter was statistically significant onlyfor adults. No statistically significant sex differences were shown on latent auditory processing, short-term memory, long-termretrieval, or fluid reasoning factors. The higher-order, latent g factor showed inconsistent differences for children, small, non-significant differences favoring females for adolescents, and fairly consistent statistically significant differences favoring females inadulthood. Findings are inconsistent with developmental theory that suggests males should show an advantage on g in adulthood.Supplemental analyses suggested that methodological choices, including the use of latent variables versus composites and methodsfor dealing with missing data, can affect research findings.