The aim of this study is to test whether female or male high school students from Kaohsiung American School have higher concentration level. Participants from both genders are asked to watch a video on Youtube and asked to see if they see abnormal things in the clip. Although the true goal is to test whether the participants noticed the moon walking bear while the video asked people how many passes can white team can make. The result showed that there is no effect of gender on awareness.
Our experimental hypothesis is that the gender of the participants affects their awareness level and our null hypothesis is if the gender of participants affects the participants’ awareness level than it is due to chance.
A research was that difference genders have different awareness levels. An experiment directed by Patricia J. Sikes in 2006 showed that difference genders have different learning habits and should be taught differently. This research also considers that teachers should teach their courses without reinforcing gender stereotypes.
Method
Our participants include ten female and ten male high school students not including both gender from senior class, since they all watched the video before in TOK class. The material needed in this experiment is the awareness test video clip. However, we would need a computer to record the results and participants’ reactions. Environment condition might affect the result of this experiment since there could be distractions around. But we tried to let participants see the video individually without abstractions interrupting them. For example, if we show the video to the participant in cafeteria, then it could distract the participants since there will still be some people hanging around in the cafeteria and they could be loud. Once again, the independent variable is gender and the dependent variable is the participants’ awareness level.
Procedures:
- We would pick 10 females and 10 males high school students from Kaohsiung American School through opportunity sampling.
- We would take them aside, then we would explain our experiment to them and ask whether they have seen the “moon walking bear” video or not.
*If the participants had seen the video, then we would not be able to have an accurate data for their level of awareness; therefore, we would have to change our participants. We would tell them “Thank you for sparing out your time” and find another participants that haven’t seen the video.
- We would show them the Moon Walking Bear video and determine their level of awareness by:
- If the participants noticed the bear before they are given the hint in the video, then we would consider them as high awareness participants.
- If the participants saw the bear after they’re given the hint in the video, then we would consider them as average level participants.
- If the participants didn’t see the bear even after they were given the hint in the video, then we would consider them as low awareness participants.
- We would record our data on the level of awareness on our participants and their gender.
- We would analyze the data and come up with a conclusion.
Results
The result showed that the majority of both female and male who saw the moon walking bear in trial 2, which both five males and females see it after the hint is given. Having the same amount of time and same requirements, half of the females and males high school students noticed the oddness of the video. This shows that gender does not have a strong influence, both the awareness level of male and female participants were slightly the same. The chart below shows how many trials it takes a participant to notice the moon walking bear. We would ask them if they see the bear or not and repeat the video over and over again until they finally see the moon walking bear.
1st trial yes:1
2nd trial yes:5
3rd trial yes:2
4th trial yes:1
0 trial: 1
In this graph, we can see that the majority of male and female have about the same amount of participants who noticed the moon walking bear in trial 2 and 3. However, not all the participants have awareness level like that, in some cases, male tends to have higher awareness level than female. The result showed that there is no effect of gender on awareness if we are looking for majority changes.
Discussion
The result of our experiment is that there is no effect of gender on awareness. The data shows that five out of ten both female and male recognized the moon walking bear in the second trial and two out of ten both female and male recognized the moon walking bear in the third trial. However, in some other trials, male tends to have higher level of awareness comparing to female. But we are looking for majority over here, so that would be miscellaneous discussion. The experiment was hard for us to gather data since a lot of people already seen the video before in TOK class or advisory and we would have to find new participants. We come up with a conclusion that teachers tend to want to test student’s awareness by showing them this video in class. The limitations are that we only test high school students that haven’t watch the video before. This might make our experiment not so accurate since the participants don't represent the whole country’s high school students, or even high school students around the world. Another issue to consider is that people might have seen a similar version of this video before on Youtube, such as gorilla version and stormtrooper version that could be found easily on Youtube. This might remind the participants of watching the same kind of video before and make the data inaccurate.
Appendices
Moon Walk Bear Video:
Consent Form:
Our research study is about gender awareness. We're testing on whether the difference on gender will affect the participants’ awareness level. In this study, we will request the participant to watch this Youtube clip called the moon walking bear. If you have watched it, then this video won't be accurate. If you haven't watched it before, then let's watch it. We'll ask for your name and grade first. After watching the video, we'll ask you a question, if you didn't see it, we'll watch it again. Due to the ethical concerns, we will keep your name in privacy by using initials, unless you specially request us to make it public.
Citations
1). Marc Green, “"Inattentional Blindness" & Conspicuity”, 4 Jan 2011,
2). Michael G. Conner, Psy.D “Understanding The Difference Between Men And Women”,1999
3). Dave Borland, “A Psych study that will blow your mind”, March 18, 2010,
4). Arons B. A review of the cocktail party effect. MIT Media Lab; 1992. .
5)Another version of awareness test video
