The influence of educational type (virtual and non-virtual) and gender on the executive functions (mental flexibility and selective attention) of students

The main Purpose of the study was to investigate the interaction between education and gender on the mental flexibility and selective attention in groups of virtual and non-virtual students. The population of the study includes the total population of industry engineering students of the virtual and non-virtual Tehran University of Science and Technology.The study was carried out in 2013. A random-cluster method was applied to select the sample. In total, 150 virtual and 148 non-virtual students were involved in this study. The sample group completed the Wisconsin and Stroop tests. The ANOVA variance analysis test was also applied in order to analyze the related data. Results: showed that the interaction between education and gender did not have an influence on selective attention and mental flexibility. However, it was found that only gender had an influence on mental flexibility. Specifically, boys had better function in this respect in comparison to girls. In addition, the virtual students had better function in terms of mental flexibility in comparison with the non-virtual students.

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