The relaxation behavior of a series of ether-ketone oligomers was studied by means of dielectric spectroscopy. In order to isolate chain stiffness from other intermolecular factors, we studied chemically homogeneous, strictly monodisperse, low molecular weight ether-ketone model compounds. The dynamics of the &agr; relaxation of ether-ketone model compounds as compared with that of the homologous polymer PEKK (50/50), shows up differences which can be attributed to the variation of inter and intra molecular correlations with the chain length. Model compounds exhibit a nearly similar degree of cooperativity regardless the differences inTgvalues. The PEKK(50/50) polymer exhibits stronger cooperativity than the oligomers suggesting that in poly(ether-ketone-ketone)s molecular motions aboveTgextend to more than one monomeric unit. ©2000 American Institute of Physics.