Regular and special education teachers' Marking Attitudes and behavior

The Minnesota Marking Attitude Scale was administered to 33 regular education and 20 special education teachers. Results showed that regular educators believed that marks have a positive influence on students while special educators believed marks have neither a positive nor a negative influence (p < .005). Special educators believed to a greater extent than did regular educators that marks should be manipulated in order to influence student behavior (p < .05) and that different standards should be used to evaluate different students (p < .001). Teachers also marked students' written short answers to two typical school questions. No significant differences were found between the marks assigned by the two groups of teachers to either set of answers. Assigned marks, attitude scores, and years of teaching experience were not significantly correlated with each other. Results are discussed in terms of implications for mainstreaming.     

Paired associate task performance effects of ability and perceived prize probability

A study was conducted to determine the performance effects of ability grouping and perceived probability of attaining a prize in a Paired-associate (PA) task. Sixty undergraduate students were pretested for PA ability and divided into high, medium, and low ability groups for random assignment to control (no prize probability), low prize probability, and high prize probability treatment groups. The dependent measure was the number of correct responses over four trials for intentional learning and number of correct responses on a single test for the incidental learning condition. Results of two-way ANOVA supported the hypothesis that performance in a PA task is affected by subject's ability and perceived probability of attaining a prize.     

Individual differences in young children's recall and clustering of pictures

Children's incidental recall of pictures was examined in two related experiments. Extrapolating from adult research, it was predicted that categorizing pictures with respect to their semantic properties would yield greater recall than categorizing them according to their physical properties. In Experiment 1, second-grade children were exposed to 16 line drawings cross-classified to represent four taxonomic categories and four shape categories, with four instances per category. Control subjects simply looked at pictures. Semantic subjects identified each picture's semantic category, and Physical subjects identified each physical category. In Experiment 2, first graders freely sorted the pictures and were classified as Semantic or Physical sorters based on their predominant bases for sorting. Following exposure (Experiment 1) or sorting (Experiment 2), all subjects were asked to recall the picture names. Results of both experiments show that semantic classification yields greater recall than physical classification. Experiment 2 also shows that semantic sorting yields greater semantic clustering in recall and that sorting by physical category yields greater physical clustering. It was suggested that children's preferences for a mode of processing (Experiment 2) may constitute an individual difference dimension with fairly clear-cut instructional implications.     

Cognitive style and complex concept acquisition

College undergraduates classified by the Hidden Figures Test as high, medium, or low analytic studied one of two lesson types. Both lessons taught four complex nondimensioned concepts from the area of social learning by presenting a definition followed by either positive examples or positive and negative examples. Immediate acquisition was assessed by a test requiring subjects to identify positive and negative examples. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed a significant interaction on the dependent variable requiring the identification of positive examples.     

Patterns of interdependence in cooperative work of elementary children

Following a theoretical analysis of factors which foster interpersonal cooperation, this study explored conditions conducive to school children's working together harmoniously and productively. Seventy-six like-sexed triads of fourth- and fifth-graders were asked to cooperate in making a block picture on a round board. Five conditions were created, varying in patterns of interdependence. All conditions included goal interdependence; they differed systematically in the presence of task requirements, task roles, and group roles. Behavior was precoded into various group oriented and individual oriented categories. An index of quality of performance was constructed. As hypothesized, while goal interdependence was sufficient to bring about friendly interactions, it did not maximize occurrence of group oriented behavior. Children worked together most, and performance was significantly better, under conditions where taks requirements, task roles, and group roles were present together. A strong consistent pattern of sex differences was found, with boys showing greater independence from experimental role inductions than did the girls, whose cooperative work pattern and performance increased systematically as their interdependence was strengthened in the five conditions. Implications for instructional practice are examined.     

Phonemic segmentation and blending skills of kindergarten children: Implications for beginning reading acquisition

This study explored the abilities of kindergarten children in segmenting and blending phonemic components of words and the relationship of these abilities to beginning reading acquisition measured by the word recognition subtest of the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) and to auditory discrimination defined by performance on the Wepman Test of Auditory Discrimination. Random assignment of 103 kindergarten children to six experimental groups was used to evaluate phonemic segmentation and blending skills and to one control group to assess the relationship of these skills to auditory discrimination. Each experimental group received training in one of three types of word division (either C-V-C, CV-C or C-VC) for phonemic segmentation and blending in one of two task sequences (either blending first or segmentation first). Results indicate that segmentation is significantly more difficult than blending and that C-V-C is the most difficult of the three types of word division for both segmentation and blending. There were no significant differential effects of the training and control procedures on a pretest and posttest of the Wepman. Follow-up with the WRAT 1 year later indicated that C-V-C segmentation is a highly useful predictor of beginning reading acquisition. Implications for teaching of reading and for the interpretation of Wepman results are included.     

On the relevance of signal detection theory to the correction for guessing

This paper shows how alternatives to the conventional guessing correction may be derived from considerations similar to the signal detection theory of psychophysics. Methods of experimentally determining the right correction are briefly suggested.     

Abused, neglected, and nonmaltreated preschoolers'' ability to discriminate emotions in others: The effects of IQ

Sixty children between the ages of 3 and 5 participated in this study of children's ability to discriminate emotions in others. Twelve children were identified as neglected, and eight were identified as abused. Two additional groups of nonmaltreated children included one comparable on IQ and one with significantly higher intelligence. All children were given three tests: The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, the Borke Interpersonal Awareness Test and the Rothenberg Social Sensitivity Test. The results showed that normal children with the higher IQ were significantly better able to identify and discriminate other people's emotions from picture stories than were the other groups of children, who were not different from one another on any of the measures. Furthermore, when IQ was covaried in the ANOVAS, all group-differences disappeared. It was suggested that previous studies demonstrating inferior performance on measures of social cognition by maltreated children may have been due to the failure to control for IQ.     

Effects of students' race,physical attractiveness,and dialect on teachers' evaluations

The study was designed to assess the effects of a student's race, dialect, and physical attractiveness on teachers' evaluations. The students were of two races, black and white; three physical attractivenss levels, high, middle, and low; and they spoke one of two dialects, Black English or Standard English. Sixty-eight, white, elementary school teachers listened to each student's response and rated the student in terms of personality, quality of response, and current and future academic abilities. Analysis of the results showed that all main effects and interactions were significant. Generally, black students, Black English-speaking students, and low attractive students were rated lower. The results also revealed that teachers' ratings in the different areas were highly consistent with one another. Discussion centered around the results' implications for determining the cause(s) of black children's failure in school. The results provide some support for attributing these children's academic failures to their race and dialect rather than to their actual performance.     

The effects of written attempts prior to correct visual presentation on spelling acquisition and retention

Students learned difficult spelling words via three different teaching methods. They either saw the correct spelling before attempting it, or could attempt to spell the word once, or several times, prior to viewing the correct spelling. Results showed that attempting to spell and test the words before viewing them facilitated acquisition of the words. The teaching methods did not differentially influence long-term retention. The locus of the effects of some teaching methods, when the words are thoroughly learned, is to be found during initial acquisition rather than evidenced in retention. Asking students to generate and test spellings prior to correct presentation facilitates encoding and acquisition of the correct spelling.     

Effects of word frequency and number of meanings for fast and slow readers

Using a lexical decision task, the effects of frequency and number of meanings are investigated for fast and slow readers. It is shown that different patterns of results emerge for fast and slow readers. For fast readers there are general effects of both frequency and number of meanings; for slow readers the effects are considerably attenuated.     

Conservatism and personality factors in a sample of adolescents

Relationships between Cattell High School Personality Questionaire factors and the adolescent version of the Wilson-Patterson Conservatism Scale were examined in a sample of 492 teenagers. Conservatism was significantly related to a number of personality traits in both boys and girls. Results suggest the existence of a “conservative personality.”     

Students' note-taking behaviors and the efficacy of providing the instructor's notes for review

College students viewed a videotaped lecture with or without taking notes. Average performance between the two groups did not differ on an immediate test. The encoding effect of note taking was therefore unsupported. Two days later, note takers reviewed their notes while listeners reviewed the instructor's notes in preparation for the delayed exam. Subjects who reviewed the instructor's notes achieved significantly more, on factual items, than did subjects who reviewed their own relatively brief and unorganized notes. Thus, listening to a lecture and subsequently reviewing the instructor's notes prior to a delayed exam leads to relatively higher achievement than does the traditional method of taking and reviewing personal lecture notes.     

Some factors in problem solving: The name of the concept,specific instructions,and the ability to verbalize

Three extrinsic factors were manipulated in a problem-solving task performed by 80 10-year-old children of IQ 90–110. The factors were: The presence or absence of the name of the concept given in feedback, specific instructions, and whether the child was allowed to verbalize. The task was a modification of Vygotsky's experiment on concept formation using concrete material. The performance criteria were: time taken to solution, number of moves, and amount of verbalization. The presence of the name of the concept given in feedback speeded the time to solution and reduced the number of moves required. Specific instruction speeded the solution but did not reduce the number of moves; whereas verbalization reduced the number of moves but increased the time of solution.     

An empirical study of formal procedure specification

Programming a computer is a problem-solving activity which can be categorized as formal procedure specification.It is a useful vehicle for the study of this aspect of problem-solving because the procedures can be automatically tested for correctness.The reported study focuses on the incidence and severity of errors committed during program development by novice programmers.The observations are summarized in tabular form, to permit insights into the sorts of errors virtually untrained students make when specifying procedures, and the problems they have eliminating them.     

The effect of sensory modalities on learning

As the importance of modalities to learning becomes increasingly apparent, the dearth of modality tests and assessment techniques becomes a critical problem. A classroom model for assessing modality strengths is suggested in which students learn to spell nonsense words via six different modalities: visual, auditory, audiovisual, vocal, motor, and tactile. The technique was used and proven effective in a study involving 396 eighth-grade students. Results of the study indicated that the presentation modality did significantly affect the amount of information learned (F = 12.36, p < .01), and that the auditory and visual modalities were most effective for this particular learning task. It is felt that this assessment technique can facilitate application of modality theory in classroom teaching.