A reliability study of earliest school recollections

To determine the reliability of earliest school recollections, judges classified 100 third- and fourth-grade public school students into behvioral categories according to their earliest school recollections (ESRs). One year later, the same students were reclassified according to their most recent ESR. It was found that there was statistically significant agreement between a student's initial and most recent classification into behavioral categories. To the researchers' knowledge, the findings of this study represent the first attempt to support the value of the ESR as a reliable diagnostic tool for identifying students' behavioral patterns at school.