Study: Girls' STEM Skills Improve With Boys' Toys

The Role of Toy Preferences in Developing Spatial Skills

Toys designed for boys, such as miniature cars and model planes, encourage the development of spatial skills in a way that tea sets and dolls do not, according to recent research. A seven-year study conducted in Hong Kong has revealed that playing with toys typically associated with boys helps children develop these skills more effectively than toys aimed at girls. This can provide an advantage if they pursue a career in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM).

Professor Ivy Wong Wang, director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong's gender studies programme, highlighted that boy-typical play, such as toy cars or assembling models, generally encourages spatial skills. In contrast, toys for girls, like tea sets or baby dolls, rarely require such skills and instead focus on nurturing.

Her research found that children, regardless of their sex, who played more with boy-typical toys had better mental transformation skills. Boys outperformed girls in this ability, as predicted.

Mental transformation is a spatial skill that involves imagining how objects look when they are transformed, rotated, or moved. "Our study proposes that we can narrow the gender gaps in development through narrowing the gender gaps in play, in particular to intervene during childhood," Wong said.

She explained that spatial skills can be applied in various real-life situations, such as reading maps, driving, and sports. Past research also shows that these skills are crucial for performance and career development in STEM fields.

"Both girls and boys need spatial skills," she said. "If girls have better spatial skills, they can perform better in mathematics and can choose a STEM career if they want."

Wong suggested that parents and teachers observe how children pick toys and encourage girls to choose puzzles, building blocks, drawing, or model building, which require spatial skills. In their interactions with children, parents and teachers could also emphasize language related to spatial skills, focusing on the size, direction, and relation of items, while avoiding labelling certain toys as specific to one sex.

She also recommended that manufacturers develop toys for girls that encourage spatial skills and reduce gendered messages in their advertisements, such as promoting certain colors to one sex only.

Wong studied 644 Hong Kong children aged five and six in 2014 and 2015. She later reassessed 210 of them between 2021 and 2023, when they were 11 to 14 years old.

The first stage of the study assessed children by observing how they picked and played with 15 types of toys in a laboratory setting. Five items were provided for each category of boy-typical, girl-typical, and gender-neutral play. Books, drawing boards, and toy animals are examples of gender-neutral play.

In the second stage, the laboratory observation was no longer age appropriate and was replaced with the teenagers' self-assessment on their preference and frequency of playing with toys from each of the three categories suitable for their age. Both stages required the participants to undergo mental transformation tests to understand their ability. The study also took into account the parents' reports on the play habits of their children at home, including the frequency, types, and number of toys.

Her study found that both boys and girls engaged in more of their gender-typical play at both stages, and boys had the advantage in mental transformation skills. The research model also confirmed the prediction that boy-typical play enabled better mental transformation for both sexes and across socioeconomic levels.

Previous studies only covered a small sample of about 100 respondents and were short-term. The study has ruled out socio-economic factors, as respondents were selected from districts with low to high household income levels according to census results.