Response Consensuality and Reading Ability of Intellectually Superior Pupils

Abstract

A positive relationship between response consensuality (i.e. commonness of word associations) and reading achievement has been demonstrated in previous studies; but the studies have, in general, been limited to male subjects unselected as to intelligence level. In the present study the generality of the relationship was examined further: The subjects were intellectually superior boys and girls. Cromer and Wiener (1966) maintain that underachievement in reading is to some extent a function of the degree to which pupils give idiosyncratic responses to a word association task. They presented seven stimulus words orally to 40 fifth grade boys and eight fifth grade girls, evenly divided into two equal sized groups on the basis of good and poor reading ability, and found that the good readers gave more consensual responses than the poor readers. Results obtained by Otto (in press) supported the findings of Cromer and Wiener. His subjects were 72 good and poor readers with average intelligence, enrolled in second, fourth, and sixth grades. Pupils who scored in the lower four stanines on the reading subtest of an achievement test battery were designated poor