Sex Differences in Nanoblock Assembly Performance



Sample Research Paper

Introduction
Furniture assembly is a difficult task which and needs special attention, cognitive and spatial abilities. Individual differences in cognitive functioning are universal; in particular, male found to have better cognitive abilities when performing any performance or verbal task. In contrast, a female was reported to have less cognitive abilities in furniture assembly task as compared to males. Sex
difference in future assembly or Nanoblock assembly has been studied widely by the researchers. Winking et al., (2015) conducted a study to investigate the sex disparities in future assembly task by controlling the availability of instruction. The male and females were divided into two groups and asked to assemble a kitchen trolley from IKEA.
The instruction was given to one group for assembling the trolly; in contrast, the other group was only given a diagram of the finished product. Furthermore, the spatial ability of the participants was assessed using an MRT (mental rotation test). The results of the analysis indicated that men showed good performance in assembling the furniture faster (d=0.78) as compared to women (d= 0.65). Also, the participant who was given instructions performed better than those who haven’t received any instructions (d=0.61). A negative correlation was found between the time spent on instructions and scores of MRT, r= .428, p=.006. The male was significantly higher n spatial ability in performing the task as compared to females. The literature is enriched with the study that highlights the significance of male superiority for furniture assembly task over female. Similarly, the current study aimed at investigating the difference between male and female in the Nanoblock Assembly Performance. For achieving the above aim, the 25 participants (Female, 11 and male 14) have been selected in the study. The participants were divided into four categories
        Male indulged in building the Nanoblock model with no Instructions
        female indulged in building the Nanoblock model with no instruction
        male indulge in building the Nanoblock with instructions
        Female indulged in building the Nanoblock with instructions

Objectives

 The current study has the following objectives.
        To investigate the sex difference in Nanoblock Assembly Performance Task, either male perform well or female.
        To explore the performance of Nanoblock Assembly Performance in two groups i.e., the o, one who received the instruction to complete the task and the one who did not receive it.
        To assess the time differences between male and female, who take less time to complete their Nanoblock model?
        To explore the quality of task between male and female n score 1 and score two sheets concerning with and without instructions. 

Hypothesis

The current study has the following hypothesis.
        Furniture assembly is based on spatial activity. Therefore, men SHOULD perform better than women
        Women usually score lower on MRT (mental rotation test) the difference should be more significant when there is no instruction



Methods

The following modes and modalities have been used in the study.
Participants
       The 25 males and females were selected for the experiment. The participants were selected almost with the equal ration where a male was 14 in numbers and females were 11. 
Material
In the study, the Nanoblock model, stopwatch, score sheet, a picture of complete Nanoblock model, and consent form was used. Two experimenters in the laboratory experimented. The one was observer/participant and the second was experimenter or manipulator.
Procedure
The experimenter and participant experimented with assessing the sex difference in the Nanoblock assembly performance task, which was conducted with or without instruction. The experiment was carried out in the lab between two groups. After taking the informed consent by the participant the participants who received the instructions and those who did not receive, any instructions were divided into two groups. The 30 minutes were given to each participant for completing his or her assembly task — the group who did not receive the instructions comprised of 6 females and seven males.
In contrast, the participants who received the instruction were composed of 5 females and seven males. The male and female were rated on a scores sheet for how much time they took for completing their task. According to the observer, the females were taking more time in completing their model.
Furthermore, females were found to be anxious as compared to males. According to the observer, the females were having pressure and distractions, which was affecting their performance.
In contrast, males were more attentive and relaxed and took less time to complete their Nanoblock model. According to the observer, the mental rotation of females was also found to be weak as compared to males. On the other hand, men showed a great spatial and cognitive skill and performed well concerning, quality and times domains of the experiment (Kim, 2015).
According to a scores sheet, the experimenter with and without instruction has assessed the diversities in the time consumption. The quality of the Nanoblock model was assessed in a 10-point rating scale. The variation in score one and score two sheets has also been observed. The gender difference was also assessed by the observer. The data scores were entered into the SPSS model for further analysis. The following analysis was carried out to assess the output of the data.
Design and Analysis
The General Linear Model, t-test, Anova was used to interpret the results.

Results

The results of the experiment are as follow. The general linear model was used to assess te difference between two group, the one who received instructions and the one who didn’t received the instruction. Which group took less time to accomplish their task. Furthermore to investigate the significant relationship between gender, time and Instructions.

General Liner Model

General Linear Model was used to analyze the difference between male and female performance in the Nanoblock completing with and without instruction. General Liner model better explains the result of the data when the data set has more than one dependent variable (Beard, Magee, Suchard, Lemey,  & Scotch 2014).
Table 1
The following table depict the male and female task completing duration with and without instructions.

Instruction
Gender
Instructions
No Instructions
Overall Mean
Male (time)
15.71
20.43
18.07
Female (time)
20.80
25.33
23.27
Overall Mean
17.83
22.69
20.36

The results of the analysis indicated that without instructions male took more time (20.43) to complete the Nanoblock task as compared to the time (15.71) when they were given no instructions. Similarly, the female took more time to complete their task 25.33 minutes when they were not given instructions. In short, in both cases with or without instructions male completed their task earlier as compared to female.

Test Between-Subjects Effects
Table 2
The following table depicts the results of the Dependent Variable Time
Source
Type III Sum of Square
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Partial Eta Squared
Corrected Model
300.484a
3
100.161
53.554
.000
.884
Intercept
10376.409
1
10376.409
5.548E3
.000
.996
Instructions
131.087
1
131.087
70.089
.000
.769
Gender
152.993
1
152.993
81.801
.000
.796
Instructions* Gender
.050
1
.050
.027
0.05
.001
Error
39.276
21
1.870



Total
10703.000
25




Corrected Total
339.760
24




a.      R Squared = .884(Adjusted R Squared = .868)
Is there a significant effect of ‘’Instructions’’?
According to the above table, a significant effect of instruction among both gender p< 000 was found.
Report the results of analysis using the correct values for F, df and p.
The above table indicated that the gender, instruction and gender* instructions have a statistically significant interactions p = 0.05 with the degree of freedom 1 and F 0.27.
What does this mean regarding the time that was taken to complete the model when instruction are used? Clue, look at the descriptive statistics.
The male and female took less time (M= 15.71, F= 20.80) to build the Nanoblock model with instructions.
Is there a significant effect of Gender?
Yes, Male took less time with and without instructions to complete the Nanoblock model with a significant difference of p>000.
Report the results of the analysis using the correct values for F, df and P?
There was a significant difference between male and female task completion with the F= 81.801, df 1 and p> 0.05.
What does this main effect means regarding the time taken to complete the Nanoblock model when male and females are compared?
Male and female took less time to complete the task after they revved the instructions, but males took the least time as compared to female.
Is there a significant (Instructions * Gender) interaction.
Yes, there was a significant (Instructions * Gender) interaction with the significance level of 0.05.
Report the results of the analysis using the correct value for F, df and p.
The instruction and gender* instructions have statistically significant interactions p = 0.05 with the degree of freedom 1 and F 0.27
Interpret the interaction based on what you can see in the post.

Independent Sample t-test
The independent sample t-test was used to assess if male and female differ in performance before and after giving instruction.
Table 3
The following table depicts the results of the t-test
Factor
Gender
M
SD
t
p
Without Instruction (time)
Male
20.43
.976
-8.588
.002
Female
25.33
2.160
With Instructions (time)
Male
15.71
1.113
-5.425
.000
Female
20.80
.837

Is there a significant difference between males and females in terms of their time taken to build the Nanobkock model when an instruction is used.
Yes, a significant difference p< .000 was found among both sexes in terms of their time taken to complete the task when instruction are used.
Report the results of the analysis using the correct values for t, df, and p.
There was a significant difference between male and female before and after reviving the instruction and Nano model completion with the df =1, level of a sig. 000 and t-8.588.
Now that you have performed the post hoc test, formally write up the results of the two-way between subjects ANOVA.
Correlation
Table 4
The following table shows the correlation between variables
Factors
Score 1
Score 2
Group 1
.591
.591
Group 2
.775
.775

The above table depicted the correlation between score 1 and score 2. Therefore the
Average scores were computed for Mean Rater Scores for further analysis. The mean rater scores depicted how much average time each group took in accomplishing their task and what was the quality of their task using score 1 and score 2 sheet.
Table 5
The following table represent the results of the mean rater scores, gender, instructions and time.

Instruction
Gender
Instructions
No Instructions
Overall Mean
Male
6.57
6.07
6.32
Female
6.70
5.67
6.13
Overall Mean
6.62
5.88
6.24

The above table indicated the male and female who received instructions were higher on mean scores. The overall results also indicated that the group who received instructed showed high scores on mean.
Table 6
The following table represent the results
Sources
Type III sum of square
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Partial Eta Squared
Correct Model
3.998a
3
1.333
2.650
0.75
.275
Intercept
958.759
1
958.759
1.906E3
.000
.989
Gender
.117
1
.117
.232
.635
.011
Instructions
3.604
1
3.604
7.166
.014
.05
Gender*Instructions
.436
1
.436
.867
.362
.040
Error
10.562
21
.503



Total
988.000
25




Corrected
14.560
24




a.      R Squared =.275 (Adjusted Squared =.171)

According to the above table, there was a significant effect of instruction among both gender p= 0.05. The above table indicated that the gender, instruction and gender* instructions have a statistically significant interactions p = 0.40 with the degree of freedom 1 and F .867. There was a significant difference between male and females in terms of completing their Nanoblock model with a significance level of 0.11. There was a significant difference between male and female task completion with the F= 7.166, df 1 and p> 0.05. There was a significant (Instructions * Gender) interaction with the significance level of 0.05.

Discussion

The experiment was carried out to assess the sex differences in Nanoblock assembly performance. The participants were divided in two-group, i.e., the one who received the instructions and those who did not receive. The Nanoblock model picture, Nanoblock model, stopwatch, and scoring sheet was used in the experiment. Each participant was given 30 minutes to complete the task, and the scores were recorded into SPSS version 21. The analysis was carried out such as General Liner Model, which depicted the significant statistical difference between gender, time and instruction. The male took more time to complete the Nanoblock model as compared to females.
Similarly, those male and female who received the instruction took less time to complete their task as compared to those who did not receive any instructions. Literature supported the findings of the current study as according to Winking et al., (2015) the males perform better in the furniture assembly task with instructions as compared to females.  The t-test results analysis indicated that male was significantly higher on scores in completing their task within the minimum time as compared to females. Substantial studies indicated that the females take more time in completing their tasks and secure fewer scores in MRT as compared to males (Suzuki Imashiro Sakata Yamamoto, 2017). 
General Liner Model was carried out to assess the effect of Mean rator scores on the gender and instruction to complete the Nanoblock assembly task. The results indicated that the males were significantly higher in completing the Nanoblock model as compared to girls. Overall the findings of the current experiment indicated that the male was better than female concerning time, and instructions. Male completed their task within less amount of time as compared to female. With and without instructions male were significantly higher on scores than men. The results of the current study support the literature, as the literature is enriched with similar studies(Winking et al., 2015: Suzuki Imashiro Sakata Yamamoto, 2017). Further studies would be carried out to assess the gender learning ability in furniture assembly tasks.