The first research question aims to investigate whether significant gender differences exist in language learning strategy use across the six-category strategies.
The results of the meta-analysis showed female learners used strategies significantly more frequently than male learners, but the gap was minor. This finding is identical to the findings of early primary studies investigating language learning strategy use such as, Oxford, Nyikos, and Ehrman’s (1988), Nyikos’ (1990), and Oxford and Nyikos’s (1989), presenting the general tendency that females have an advantage over males with respect to language learning. Although gender differences in language strategy use were found in the early studies (Oxford, Nyikos, & Ehrman’s, 1988; Nyikos, 1990;
Oxford & Nyikos, 1989), researchers tended to explain the phenomenon that female learners using strategies more often than male learners by employing the factors containing context-related and learner-related variables without considering the basically different biology between two groups. There may be biological-based difference in verbal abilities between males and females so that gender differences in language learning strategy use are unavoidable.
Verbal abilities are included in cognitive abilities which are also often discussed in spatial abilities, processing speed and memory (Hedges & Nowell, 1995). Verbal abilities apply to all components of language usage: word fluency, which is the ability to generate words, grammar, spelling, reading, writing, verbal analogies, vocabulary and oral comprehension. The results of the current meta-analysis study provide support to the findings that are proposed in verbal abilities between male and female learners relating to language learning (Feingold, 1988; Hyde & Linn 1988; Hyde &
McKinly, 1997). The research from a variety of sources favoring female superiority
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on verbal tasks in native language learning also revealed some evidence that, on the average, females have better verbal abilities than males, but the advantages is likely to be small and depends on the type of verbal ability that is measured (Halpern, 2000;
Kimura, 1999; Lippa, Martin & Friedman, 2000; Gazzaniga, Ivry, & Mangun, 1998;
Haynes, 2004). The evidence from the research of verbal abilities can also complementarily support the findings of the present study that females use strategies a bit more frequently than males.
In the studies of L1 reading abilities, evidence showed boys are much more likely to have reading deficiency than girls (Rutter, Fergusson, Horwood, Goodman, Maughan, & Carroll, 2004). Research conducted at four different sites in New Zealand and the United Kingdom concluded that at least twice the incidence of reading disorders are for boys as compared to girls. Approximately 2% of the school population is dyslexic, mild dyslexia is 5 times more likely to occur in males than in females and severe dyslexia is 10 times more likely to appear in males than in females (Sutaria, 1985). The conclusion that boys are, in general, less skilled in reading is also supported by international data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA; OECD, 2009). In a cross-national study of 30 countries, 3.7% of females and 0.8% of males are in the category as “top performers in reading”, so girls are less likely to have a reading deficiency and more likely to be among the best in reading.
For L1 writing abilities, Kaufman, Niu, Sexton, and Cole (2010) found that females’ poems are judged as more creative than males’ and when researchers reviewed several other studies relating to these creativities, they had the similar conclusion: females write more creative poems than males do, but scores on general creativity tests showed few differences (most of which favor females), suggesting that the advantage that females have in creativity is most probably very limited to verbal
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tasks (Bauer & Kaufman, 2008). The result of creativities between males and females are also supportive of the findings of the present study that the existing differences between these two groups are really small.
These findings of verbal abilities consistently verify females are better language learners as compared to males. From the perspective of Geschwind-Galaburda’s theory of prenatal hormones effects at around the same time of Oxford’s early language learning strategy studies, if left-handedness is sometimes the results of exposure to higher than average amounts of prenatal testosterone, then the relationships among being male, being left-handed, immune disorders and patterns of cognitive abilities that are known to be lateralized in the right or left hemisphere will turn out to be positive. Also, according to Halpern’s (2012) suggestions, Females may have overall higher performance on cognitive tasks that are usually associated with left hemisphere, which generally includes verbal tasks. On the other hand, females may also perform more poorly on the cognitive tasks that are primarily under right hemisphere control, which generally includes visuospatial tasks.
Furthermore, biological research reported in recent articles are increasingly shedding light on neurological and hormonal differences in the brains of males and females (Griffiths, 2008). For example, females have more nerve cells in the left half of the brain where language is centered (Legato, 2005a), and have a more intensive connection between the two sides of the brain (Tyre, 2005a). Female seem to use more of their brains to listen and to speak which “may make activities essential to communication easier for them” (Legato, 2005b, p.183). Brain scan imagery performed by neuroscience shows that both females and males utilize the same area of the brain when processing language, but depending on the language task, females often use both sides of the brain. Also, when being given identical assignments, females activate more areas in their brain than males do (Legato, 2005a).
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Therefore, the biological differences, especially the brain which operates differently in males and females, may cause the fundamental gender differences in language learning strategy use. Because females have an advantage on language learning abilities, they may tend to use strategies more frequently than males or they may more be able to employ and choose strategies in their language learning. This phenomenon keeps its effects on the second research question.