Informational Content of Children in the First Four Grades
- Author:
Helen Wiltshire
The Central Clinic, Cincinnati Although the investigation of general information in children has interested relatively few research workers, those who have contributed have concerned themselves, chiefly, either with the information possessed by the child on entering school, or with the pupil sufficiently advanced to be able to read the questions from a questionnaire. No single means has been offered of measuring the child’s acquisition during the period from the entrance of school to the third or fourth grade.
Historical Background
Early investigations on children’s information started in Germany shortly after individual differences began to be studied, and following Herbart’s doctrine of the apperceptive mass, thus precipitating, in 1869, an inquiry as to the knowledge possessed by 10,000 children on entering school in an effort to plan for their school programs. Hall (3) reported, in addition to his study of 1880 with Boston school children, the work also of Lange (1879) on 500 city and 300 rural pupils, of Greenwood (1883) with 678 Kansas City primary children, of Hartmann (1880-84) with 1312 pupils entering school over a five year period, and the study by Varde (1898) with 5600 first grade pupils, all of which deal with the informational content of children on entering school and were, moreover, practical measures in cooperation with schools, an indication of the trend of this subject as an applied field. In the * The writer is deeply grateful to Dr Virginia T. Graham of the Central Clinic for helpful suggestions and constructive criticism throughout the progress of this study, and for the reading of the manuscript; to Mr. Omar H. Bennett, Superintendent of Hamilton County Schools, for assistance in securing rural subjects; to Mr. Edward D. Eoberts, Superintendent of the Cincinnati Public Schools, for permission to select children from the city schools; to Dr Mabel Fernald for suggestions and assistance in the choice of the urban cases; and to the numerous school principals and teachers whose splendid cooperation facilitated the collection of the data. above mentioned studies, as a rule, the children were questioned either singly or in small groups, on a series of items dealing with objects seen, either of local or universal interest. The boys demonstrated themselves more widely informed in the majority of instances. Whipple (10) constructed a Range of Information Test (1909) for denoting the fields with which high school students are familiar.
Revision and later standardizations by Smith include norms for college students. Pressey and Shively (4) gave a selected vocabulary test covering various fields to 56 fifth grade pupils, hoping to find some indication of the extent of the child’s experience as well as a measure of general intelligence. A sex difference was observed in that the boys were interested in different subject groups of information from the girls. Terman (8) gave his vocabulary questionnaire to superior and control groups from the 3rd grade through the 12th, and noted in the controls progressive increase with age, also a superiority of boys over girls except at years 9 and 12.
Eastman (1), working at the Wayne Psychopathic Clinic in Detroit, reported on 100 questions chiefly of local interest, which were adaptable for use with delinquents and adults. She found the variance between the two groups studied?those above an I.Q. of 80 and those below?was less as the chronological age increased. Also, the median scores by ages lowered progressively as the mental age decreased. The boys scored higher. Results showed the inferior child as doing better if he came from a superior home, but with the normal or superior child, the environment made little difference.
Weeks (9) devised a vocabulary test for 7th and 8th grade pupils which consisted of three lists of 50 words each. The multiple choice method of answering was used. Probst (5) found a significant difference in the information of children from the upper and from the lower halves of the socioeconomic groups in her study on kindergarten pupils. The boys did better than the girls consistently. Shimberg (7) constructed and T scaled a series of information questions on children from the 4th grade through college, in two forms, A and B, for urban and rural groups respectively. Grade progress was consistent and smooth. Although the author does not consider the content of the test as favoring the boys, they did excel in the rural group except for a brief pre-adolescent period. The urban group was not differentiated. The rural pupils were found to be one year retarded when measured by the urban test, also the urban were retarded on the rural test, so she concluded the two groups are “different,” rather than superior and inferior. Sangren (6) reported median scores for ages 5, 6 and 7 years on 6 types of material, including nature study, vocabulary, numbers, social and civic information, household utensils and language and literature. The test was devised in a large measure to determine what young children know on entering school and to set up some standards of promotion and placement.
Nature of the Present Study
The present study reports a standardization of a series of information questions given orally to 400 school children in the first four grades. The test used was the Scaled Information Test, Form A, devised by Lowe and Shimberg, published by C. H. Stoelting & Co., and standardized in written form for Grades 4 through college. Although the questions are not exhaustive for these early years, the questionnaire, itself, is well constructed, and considered of value in indicating the rank of a child when compared with other children of his age and grade. Inasmuch as the questions on Form A seemed to be fairly general and did not concern things with which the city child was more in contact than the rural, it was thought interesting to compare the same scale on the two groups. Scale B deals with information strictly pertinent to a rural background: (Of what is butter made? Name four crops.) Selection of Subjects Approximately one third of the 100 cases from each grade represented rural districts in Hamilton County, Ohio, while the remainder were selected from the public schools of Cincinnati. The rural schools were considered by the county superintendents to be average for this county, which is, however, not so isolated as many. A great number of the children came from farm homes. The schools were township schools and were located in or near villages, and the children came in buses, for the most part. The urban schools were selected with the assistance of the Psychological Laboratory of the Vocation Bureau on the basis of cultural background and ability. The children came partly from a downtown section and partly from a hilltop suburb. The schools were those whose first grade children in previous years had scored near the median of the entire Cincinnati group on the PintnerCunningham Group Intelligence Test. With both groups, only cases were used on which it was possible to verify the birthdates at the Bureau of Vital Statistics, and for whom intelligence test scores were available. A small number of the children had had Stanford Binet examinations, but the bulk of the data were scores from the Pintner Cunningham Group Test given as a matter of routine, both in the city and county, to all first grade pupils.
Two distributions were prepared for each grade in order to select cases which yielded normal distribution curves with respect to age and to mental test scores. An effort was made to have as many accelerated as retarded in each group, but with the greatest number coming within the normal age for grade, and within the “normal” intellectual limits. On the basis of these two distributions, age and intelligence per grade, the final lists were evolved. No special effort was made to eliminate negro children, but not more than two were included in this group of subjects.
Experimental Procedure
The examinations were all made by the writer and the work was done during the second semester, 1932, except for 10 cases completed the following October. The children were seen alone in a quiet room during school hours. Questions from the Scaled Information Test standardized by Lowe and Shimberg were used in the same numerical order, but due to the youth and immaturity of the subjects, only the first twenty questions were given. The question was stated, repeated if the child seemed slow in getting the significance, but no other help was afforded. The answers were recorded on the back of the file cards containing the child’s personal data. The time required was about five minutes per pupil, which did not tax the child’s attention.
The results were scored according to the key accompanying the Scaled Information Test. Results The average age for each grade is given below. The urban children were slightly older than the rural children at the time of the respective examinations, due, chiefly, to the fact that the ma202 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC jority of the former were tested during the last month of the school term, while the rural children were questioned early in February. Table 1 Ages of the Children in the Rural and City Groups by Grade Grade Rural No cases Mean Sigma City No cases Mean Sigma Combined No cases Mean Sigma I I I Ill… . IV 36 31 34 29 6.77 7.91 8.85 9.64 .50 .71 .59 .58 64 69 66 71 7.12 8.09 9.19 10.06 .69 .66 .62 .62 100 100 100 100 7.0 8.04 9.08 9.94 .65 .69 .62 .64
Mean Intelligence Quotients of the group fall well within the classification of average, as Table 2 shows. Variations within the average range occur, but are probably not greatly significant here, inasmuch as the test used was merely a rough indication of the group level.
Table 2 Intelligence Quotients for Each Grade Grade Rural Mean Sigma Urban Mean Sigma Combined Mean Sigma I. . II.. III. IV. 103.06 96.6 107.56 106.38 15.74 16.85 15.87 14.56 99.7 100.21 101.2 101.6 13.45 11.48 14.97 13.92 100.9 99.5 103.2 103.2 14.45 13.52 15.52 14.31
It will be observed in Table 3 that the number of questions answered correctly by both the rural and urban children increases by grade and that there is a slight, though consistent tendency in favor of the urban group. Table 3 Number of Questions Answered Correctly for Each Grade Grade Rural Mean Sigma Urban Mean Sigma Combined Mean Sigma I. . II.. III. IV. 3.08 5.40 7.26 10.53 1.59 1.81 2.21 2.23 4.09 6.11 8.91 11.11 1.80 2.19 2.29 2.17 3.72 5.9 8.35 10.94 1.79 2.12 2.39 2.21
The following distribution chart shows the number of children making the various scores on the test in the rural and urban groups. The amount of overlapping evident would seem to minimize the significance of the differences between the means of the groups, however. Table 4 The Number of Children Making the Various Scores on the Test by Grade No. of Quest. First R. U. Second R. U. B. Third R. U Fourth R. U. B 3 7 7 10 6 1 1 1 1 7 11 14 13 6 8 3 1 4 14 18 24 19 7 9 4 1 0 0 2 5 5 11 3 2 0 3 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 0 1 4 9 7 14 8 12 10 2 1 1 0 1 6 14 12 25 11 14 10 5 1 1 0 0 0 1 2 4 4 11 13 13 7 6 2 1 1 1 Total No. 36 64 100 31 69 100 34 66 0 0 0 4 4 9 12 14 18 15 12 7 2 1 1 1 100 29 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 6 5 9 15 11 11 4 6 3 71 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 8 10 17 18 15 14 5 6 3 100
From Table 5, it will be observed that the boys are a fraction of a year older than the girls, consistently, although this discrepancy is very slight, and probably not great enough to be of significance. Table 5 The Ages op the Children in Each Grade by Sex Grade I… II. . III. IV.. Boys No. Cases 50 49 53 54 Mean 7.06 8.09 9.06 10.00 Sigma .44 .72 .62 .20 Girls No. Cases 50 51 47 46 Mean 6.90 7.91 9.10 9.85 Sigma .60 .65 .60 .63 Combined No. Cases 100 100 100 100 Mean 6.98 7.99 9.08 9.93 Sigma .65 .70 .62 .64
When the subjects are divided as to sex, the mean Intelligence Quotients are all within the average range, although the girls are appreciably higher, except in Grade 3 (Table 6). It is interesting Table 6 The Intelligence Distribution by Sex and Grade Grade Boys Mean Sigma Girls Mean Sigma I. . II. III. IV. 96.40 97.24 104.63 101.04 15.36 13.41 15.62 14.31 105.4 101.86 103.52 105.0 11.13 16.55 14.86 13.96 to compare the findings with the ability to answer the information questions as shown in Table 7, where the girls do less well. This
Table 7 The Number of Questions Answered Correctly by Sex and Grade Grade Boys Mean Sigma Girls Mean Sigma I. . II. III. IV. 4.06 5.72 8.92 11.76 1.88 2.05 2.55 1.67 3.42 5.44 7.71 10.63 1.30 2.19 2.02 1.90 sex difference favoring the boys is similar to that found by other investigators, and is probably to be attributed to the greater aggressiveness of boys with regard to acquiring general information. The ability to answer the questions increases also with age. Table 8 indicates that the boys’ records show a slight advantage over the girls’ at all ages. Table 9 reveals, however, a distribution with a considerable amount of overlapping between the male and female groups, and shows that in the majority of year levels studied, some boys make as low scores as the girls, but the highest scores are usually made by the male group.
There is very little difference between the rural and urban groups, apparently, although the margin is, as a rule, weighted in favor of the urban group.
The difference between the rural and urban groups in ability to answer the questions on Form A might be explained, according
Table 8 The Number of Questions Answered Correctly by Sex and Age Age Boy a Girls Combined No. Cases Mean Sigma No. Cases Mean Sigma Mean Sigma 6 7 8 9 10 27 42 52 54 29 3.94 5.17 7.25 10.0 11.47 2.04 2.33 3.06 2.69 2.20 31 47 46 46 23 3.21 4.88 6.70 8.72 9.67 1.39 2.28 2.17 2.18 2.68 3.55 5.02 6.99 9.41 10.67 1.77 2.33 2.73 2.56 2.58 3 cases were discarded in this table, being outside the 5 yr. levels here tabulated.
Table 9 The Number of Children Making the Various Scores on the Test by Sex and Age No. of Quest. 6 yrs. M. F. B 7 yrs. M. F. B 8 yrs. M. F. B 9 yrs. M. F. B 10 yrs. M. F. B 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Total 4 7 11 14 14 2 3 2 1 0 6 12 17 16 11 8 7 6 5 0 0 3 13 7 19 11 14 7 27 31 58 42 47 89 52 46 98 0 0 0 0 2 1 5 3 12 5 7 5 4 6 3 1 54 2 4 6 11 8 4 2 46 100 29 0 0 0 0 2 3 5 2 4 13 5 11 1 4 2 23 52
to Shimberg, by the characteristic ” different’’ backgrounds of the children, the discrepancy in scores being less in this study due (1) to the relatively close proximity of the Hamilton County schools to Cincinnati, thereby drawing from a less isolated country section than did Shimberg; and (2) to the well organized school system provided in this section, which is probably of as high a
Table 10 The Number of Questions Answered Correctly in Rural-Urban Groups by Age Age Rural No. Cases Mean Sigma Urban No. Cases Mean Sigma 6 7 8 9 10 25 30 36 29 9 3.14 4.83 6.64 9.78 1.32 2.24 2.44 2.51 not calculated 33 59 62 71 43 3.83 5.09 7.18 9.26 10.97 1.87 2.36 2.87 2.55 2.43 standard as that of many smaller urban communities, while Shimberg’s children came in much greater proportions from the one room type of school district. There is, moreover, a factor which may account to a large extent for a closer correspondence of these two groups in recent years, even since Shimberg’s study was made, and that is the radio. Practically every home has a set of some kind, a measure which is, without doubt, informative. It was observed, however, that the lowest scores in the urban schools were made by slum children of average intelligence, especially girls. While this latter group was too small to be of statistical value, the tendency is interesting. There does, moreover, appear to be some relationship between home background and the acquisition of information such as this test measures, and it is possible that the rural pupils, as a group, are less favored than the urban in this regard.
Conclusions 1. The ability to answer certain information questions increases by grade, in both the rural and urban groups, and the urban pupils have a slight advantage. 2. A sex difference is evident in favor of the boys in all grades, more pronouncedly in the 3d and 4th grades. 3. There is also apparent an increase of informational content, as measured by this scale, with chronological age. The boys are ahead at all ages, more noticeably so at the upper ages (9 and 10 years), though this lead does not seem to be consistently progressive with age. 4. If compared on an age basis, the urban children also show a slight lead over the rural. INFORMATIONAL CONTENT OF CHILDREN 207 5. The overlapping of the rural and urban groups is so great as to minimize the significance of the difference between the means. This is evident both in the age and grade distributions. 6. The difference in the age means of the sexes is also minimized through the factor of overlapping. Bibliography 1. Eastman, E. An information test applied to juvenile delinquents, J. Appl. Psychol., 1926, 10, 202-215. 2. Garrett, Henry E. Statistics in psychology and education, New York, Longmans, Green, 1926. 3. Hall, G. Stanley. Aspects of child life and education, New York, D. Appleton and Co., 1921, pp. xiii + 326. 4. Pressey, S. L., & Shively, I. M. A practical information test for use with delinquents and illiterate adults, J. Appl. Psychol., 1919, 3, 374380. 5. Probst, Catherine. A general information test for kindergarten children, Child Development, 1931, 2, 81-95. 6. Sangren, P. Y. Sangren information tests for young children, Yonkers, New York, World Book Co., 1930. 7. Shimberg, M. Investigation into the validity of norms with special reference to urban and rural groups, Arch. Psychol., 1929, No. 104, pp. 84. 8. Terman, L. Genetic studies of genius, Stanford Univ. Press, Vol. I, 1925. 9. Weeks, A. L. A vocabulary information test, Arch. Psychol., 1928, No. 97, pp. 77. 10. Whipple, Guy M. A range of information test, Psychol. Rev., 1909, 16, 347-351.
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