University/Organization
Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania
Lock Haven, Pennsylvania

Title
GENDER, AND PRACTICE FACTORS ON LEARNING OF A VISUAL AIMING, AND TARGET-ACQUISITION TASKS

Synopsis
This paper demonstrates that current social, cultural, and task contexts, not the motor control and learning deficiencies affect women’s performance in complex visual motor tasks. The results showed that, although males’ performance appeared to be better overall (largely due to small differences accumulates) across conditions, women performed as well as men and even better for accuracy when practicing the altered task factors simultaneously in a complex visual motor task. Therefore, gender differences in performing visual motor tasks should not be exaggerated because they may carry a greater risk of promoting gender-based discrimination in the workplace. However, we should not ignore differences just because the current social, cultural, and task contexts in real-life motor skills are advantageous to males and may discourage women from becoming involved in performing certain visual motor tasks.

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