Prior research has found gender differences in spatial tasks in which men perform better, and are more confident, than women. Do gender differences also occur in people’s confidence as they perform number-line estimation, a common spatial-numeric task predictive of math achievement? To investigate this question, we analyzed outcomes from six studies (N = 758 girls/women and boys/men with over 20,000 observations; grades 1–5 and adults) that involved a similar method: Participants estimated where a provided number (e.g., ¾, 37) was located on a bounded number line (e.g., 0–1; 0–100), then judged their confidence in that estimate. Boys/men were more precise (g = .52) and more confident (g = .30) in their estimates than were girls/women. Linear mixed model analyses of the trial-level data revealed that girls’/women’s estimates had about 31% more error than did boys’/men’s estimates, and even when controlling for precision, girls/women were about 7% less confident in their estimates than were boys/men. These outcomes should encourage researchers to consider gender differences for studies on math cognition and provide pathways for future research to address potential mechanisms underlying the present gender gaps.

先前的研究发现，在空间任务中性别差异会导致男性比女性表现更好，更自信。在人们进行数字估计时，人们的信心中是否也会出现性别差异？数字估计是数学成绩的常见空间数字任务？为了调查这个问题，我们分析了六项研究的结局（N  = 758名女孩/妇女和男孩/男子，具有20,000多个观察值； 1-5年级和成人），采用的方法相似：参与者估计了提供的数字（例如，37）位于有界线（例如0–1; 0–100）上，然后判断他们对该估计的信心。男孩/男人更精确（g  = .52）和更自信（g = 0.30）比女孩/妇女高。对试验水平数据的线性混合模型分析显示，女孩/妇女的估计值比男孩/妇女的估计值多31％的误差，即使在控制精确度的情况下，女孩/妇女对其估计值的信心也降低了约7％比男孩/男人要多。这些结果应鼓励研究人员考虑性别差异进行数学认知研究，并为将来的研究提供途径，以解决当前性别差距的潜在机制。