Gender differences in Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS) cognitive processes and achievement

Gender differences in ability and achievement have been studied for some time and have been conceptualized along verbal, quantitative, and visual-spatial dimensions. Researchers recently have called for a theory-based approach to studying these differences. This study examined 1,100 boys and 1,100 girls who matched the U.S. population using the Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, Successive (PASS) cognitive-processing theory, built on the neuropsychological work of A. R. Luria (1973). Girls outperformed boys on the Planning and Attention scales of the Cognitive Assessment System by about 5 points (d = .30 and .35, respectively). Gender differences were also found for a subsample of 1,266 children on the Woodcock-Johnson Revised Tests of Achievement Proofing (d = .33), Letter-Word Identification (d = .22), and Dictation (d = .22). The results illustrate that the PASS theory offers a useful way to examine gender differences in cognitive performance.