Sex-Related Differences on Fine-Motor Tasks at Grade One

Abstract

This study attempted qualitatively and quantitatively to assess sex-related differences on fine motor tasks performed by 132 first-grade students, 56.8% boys and 43.2% girls. The results of two criterion-referenced probes, involving accuracy and rate, were analyzed with the SPSS programs oneway and anova. Both sexes performed equally well on a task involving dotting a circle but boys performed significantly worse on a task involving symbol copying. It was hypothesized that the difference might reflect a difference in information processing of symbols.