摘要:

Summary.Major problems in the field are presented through a brief review of Burt's work and a critical account of the Hawaiian and British schools of biometrical genetics. The need for a covariance term is stressed and an estimate, based on several studies, is given. The merits and demerits of Jencks' study are discussed. There follows an account of the principle of genetic variation with age, a new concept to the heredity‐environment field. The new solution, based largely on Jencks' approach and incorporating the genetic variation principle, is then outlined. Its results may be regarded as a compromise between Jencks and Burt in that it agrees with Jencks on the matter of covariance (about 18–19 per cent) but is closer to Burt as far as the relative importance of hereditary and environmental differences is concerned (about 75:25). The consistency of the solution with other studies in the field is demonstra

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1978.tb02365.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1978

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Summary.First letter mnemonics are popular but they have failed to improve recall in several studies. In Experiment I the effectiveness of experimenter and subject generated mnemonics and concrete and abstract mnemonic words were compared using a sample of 30 undergraduates. There was no improvement in recall. It was hypothesised that the general failure of experimental studies of the mnemonic may result from the use of unrelated words as learning material. The mnemonic may help retain order but not aid retrieval. In Experiment II, when a random ordering of the days of the week had to be retained, first letter mnemonics considerably improved recall among a sample of 36 undergraduates. The mnemonic does, therefore, aid recall when the items are known but their ordering presents problems.

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1978.tb02366.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1978

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Summary.An investigation of the different claims made by Bryant and Piaget about children's ability to make proportional judgments is presented. Using a sample of 59 children aged between 5 and 11 years, it was found that contrary to Piaget's predictions they could logically connect two discrete perceptual experiences as demanded by proportional type tasks. As suggested by Bryant's thesis, the difficulty young children found in making proportional judgments was one of analysing these initial perceptual relationships. Minor modifications to Bryant's thesis are proposed, which entail extending it to include relativexabsolute coding as a higher level cognitive skill. This enables discrete levels of understanding the concept of proportion to be identified. From a theoretical viewpoint this study adds support to Bryant's critique of Piaget's work.

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1978.tb02367.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1978

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Summary.When presented with abstract notions through the verbal media of books, newspapers, talks, TV and radio, people often produce quite erroneous generalisations. Thus the notionaggressioncan evoke, besides a true generalisationinhumanity, a particularisationimperialism, a transductiveexploitation, and an associated but non‐essential attributedetestable, each of the last three being mistaken as a notion more general than the original concept. These aberrations may be more marked, the more persuasive the medium and the more emotionally involved the listener or recorder.This paper describes a method of investigating such possible trends among young people and adults and reveals their extent in samples of graduates, undergraduates, further education students and secondary pupils. A test of generalising, embodying the alternatives set out above, revealed that whilst 90 per cent of students in all groups correctly responded to the concrete items, their responses to the abstract items ranged from some 80–60 per cent. The implications of these findings are discussed against the possible intellectual confusion arising in less sophisticated adults when they encounter ideas in verbal experience and discou

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1978.tb02368.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1978

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Summary.It was hypothesised that specific styles or verbal processing would be characteristic of 96 high school students drawn from different social class/sex groups. Such distinctive patterns of functioning, it was posited, could be largely explained by earlier socialisation experiences. Individual structured interviews were transcribed verbatim and six dimensions of verbal processing examined: categories of processing; modes of expression; verbal content; ideational fluency; category breadth; and conceptual preference. Discriminant function analysis, extended and supplemented by analysis of variance, was used to test the hypothesis of style‐specific modes of functioning. Middle‐class boys and girls displayed similar overall verbal strategies: discriminating, tentative, abstract and person‐oriented. Middle‐class girls, however, preferred comparing/evaluating modes, while middle‐class boys used describing/explaining ones. Working‐class boys and girls were generally non‐differentiating and non‐discriminating and showed a distinct preference for closed‐categorical concepts. The notion of style‐specific patterns of verbal processing for the criterion groups was supported for social class but onl

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1978.tb02369.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1978

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Summary.Continuing a previous study, the proportion of children in a representative sample of 1200 15‐ to 16‐ year‐olds showing different Piagetian levels of thinking was measured. No increase in the proportion showing formal operational thinking was found beyond the age of 15. On the three tests used a retrospective analysis of both surveys for sex differential showed no increase for girls after 14, while the boys continued for a further year. The pendulum problem showed no sex differential, and the boys indicated level was, on average, the same on all three tests. The girls' performance was substantially lower on the test on spatial relationships, and on the test on volume and density, throughout the age‐range

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1978.tb02370.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1978

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Summary.A battery of Piagetian‐type tasks were administered to a sample of 93 English primary school children four times at six‐monthly intervals from an average age of six years as part of a longitudinal study of cognitive development. From a series of scalogram analyses, hierarchies of difficulty were found which were significantly stable from testing to testing in respect of bothitemsandsubjectsin the sam

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1978.tb02371.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1978

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Summary.The performance of children who had experienced Dienes and Fletcher mathematics schemes was examined on abstract and real‐life concept‐formation tasks (N=16 per group). No overall difference was found between children taught mathematics under the different schemes, but those taught by the Dienes method formed real‐life concepts more success

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1978.tb02372.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1978

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Summary.Whether an individual's spelling accuracy is related to personality apart from general intellectual capacity was investigated by giving a spelling test to 80 undergraduates, 40 repressers and 40 sensitizers identified on the basis of scores received on Byrne's Repression‐Sensitization Scale. The sensitizers were clearly superior to the repressers in their spelling accuracy, and this difference was not an artefact of differences in intellectual aptitude as determined by SAT verbal and quantitative scores. In fact, among the male subjects the repressers, with lower spelling scores, had higher quantitative SAT scores than sensitizer

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1978.tb02373.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1978

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Summary—The work reported involved detailed study of 14 students learning a large and complex body of subject matter. A specific aspect of learning strategy (the extent to which students developed their understanding on a broad or narrow front) was examined. In general the results support hypotheses predicting positive relationships between a broad strategy in learning, wide attention deployment, a flexible approach to problem‐solving and cognitive complexity. The relationships of measures of intelligence, extraversion and neuroticism, to the above factors were also exami

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1978.tb02374.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1978

数据来源: WILEY