Which would be more cost effective heating a space with gas heat or electric heat. I'm not asking for heat pump information, just heating element.

Usually it is cheaper to heat by gas; 1 kw of electric would produce about 3415 BTU(resistance heat), 1 therm (ft3) of gas would get 100K btu( but at 80% efficiency it is 80K). Don't know what your gas and electric rate are; you could do the math from here !