Gender differences in inference generation by fourth-grade students

The purpose of this study was to determine if there are gender differences among elementary school-aged students in regard to the inferences they generate during reading. Fourth-grade students (130 females; 126 males) completed think-aloud tasks while reading one practice and one experimental narrative text. Females generated a larger number and a greater proportion of reinstatement inferences than did males (Cohen's d = .34, p = .01; Cohen's d = .26, p = .04, respectively). In contrast, there was no evidence for gender differences in other types of think-aloud responses. These findings suggest that males and females differ in their use of cognitive processes that underlie reading comprehension, particularly with respect to the likelihood of retrieval of information from episodic memory.