Ability Of School Children Research Articles

Investigating the mental abilities of rural Zulu primary school children in South Africa

Introduction. Maximising the full potential of health and educational interventions in South African schools requires assessment of the current level of mental abilities of the school children as measured by cognitive and scholastic tests and the identification of any barriers to improved performance. Objectives. This study reports on the application and interpretation of a selected battery of mental ability tests among Zulu school children and the methodological and analytical issues that need to be addressed. Design The test scores of 806 primary school children from a rural community are presented, based on four tests: Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM), an Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT), the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) and Young's Group Mathematics Test (GMT). Results. Significant gender differences were found in the test scores, and the mean scores of Zulu children in this study were lower than those reported in other studies. The results of this selected test battery provide data for the further development of appropriate test instruments for South African conditions. Conclusion. These results can contribute towards the development of a test battery for South African children that can be used to assess and improve their school performance.

Elementary School Children's Ability to Distinguish Hypothetical Beliefs From Statements of Preference.

The authors examined students’ understanding of hypotheses as beliefs that can be empirically verified. Thirty second graders and 30 sixth graders considered cases of disagreement about foods and colors that reflected either alternative hypotheses or different preferences. Their task was to decide whether the validity of each expressed belief could be determined and to justify their decision. Younger students considered both hypotheses and preferences as empirically verifiable, whereas older students were better able to recognize in some cases that preferences are legitimately variable. This lack of distinction may reflect limited metaconceptual ability or a deterministic epistemological view, both of which might interfere with the understanding of the hypothesis-testing process.

Schoolchildren's abilities to frame, understand and successfully manipulate food label information: enabling consumer choice through education

At a time when the major dialogue in food labelling is directed towards the volume and type of information presented, it is important to understand whether adolescents leaving education have the abilities to comprehend and use the current label as they represent the next generation of consumers.Legislation has been created to protect consumers and to enable them to make informed food choices. Food labels carry a significant volume of mandatory and voluntary information, designed to fulfil a variety of commercial and consumer functions. For these laws to be effective at an individual level, it is important that information is framed correctly, and that people can manipulate the data in an accurate and meaningful manner.In order to optimise food label information consumers require some competence across three different conceptual dimensions: maths, English comprehension, and health and nutrition. Most individuals acquire such skills at school.The pilot research that this paper describes investigates changes in the abilities to frame, comprehend and manipulate label information, of 19 schoolchildren at one secondary school in Scotland. The main research, to be conducted in 2003, will include over a thousand children from another seven Scottish schools.Statistical analysis indicates that there is a significant improvement in the dimensions of both maths and English comprehension between levels S1 and S5, whilst the health and nutrition dimension does not show such significance.Each dimension has been measured against attitudes towards the use of labels in shopping and cooking to determine if the differences between those who use labels and those who do not are significantThe research also proposes a new method of presenting nutrition information to make it more meaningful to individuals across a wide spectrum of competence by reducing the number of conceptual components required to comprehend it.

Schoolchildren's abilities to frame, understand and successfully manipulate food label information: enabling consumer choice through education

Schoolchildren's abilities to frame, understand and successfully manipulate food label information: enabling consumer choice through education

Trends in children's concepts of vertebrate and invertebrate

Children link backbones with movement but see them as large and inflexible. These and other findings are used to argue for a better understanding of structure and function School children's ability to classify animals as vertebrate or invertebrate has been found in previous studies to be weak. Typically vertebrates are regarded as large animals with obvious heads and limbs whilst invertebrates are seen as shapeless, legless animals that crawl. Little is known about the conceptions held by primary aged children or about the ways in which ideas vary with age. This paper reports the results of a cross-age study carried out with children aged between 7 and 15. Children's classification of photographic examples of animals and the attributes of vertebrates and invertebrates they associate with examples have been analysed so that trends in thinking can be shown. The youngest children seem preoccupied with shape, form, and size. A very strong idea held by children at all ages is that any animal that coils or flexes cannot possess a backbone. Children also seem to regard a backbone as a wide, straight structure. Many of the minority of children who classify animals like a snake, seal, and fish correctly as vertebrates seem to have some first-hand experience of internal structure. The paper uses the trends identified to suggest a number of experiences that could be included in the school science curriculum to redress the situation and argues for more classroom work relating structure with function.

Providing for Mathematically Able Children in Ordinary Classrooms

There is growing concern in England about provision for very able children in state maintained schools. These concerns centre on the need for subject-specific criteria for the identification of very able children and the associated need for teachers to set work that is sufficiently challenging. These concerns are briefly reviewed together with research related to the mathematical characteristics of able children. A fourfold strategy for provision in mathematics classrooms is discussed. It is further suggested that case study evidence from ordinary classrooms is a potentially valuable source and basis for teacher-agreement on this strategy. Through the interpretation of pupil responses to challenging tasks it should be possible to develop a theoretical framework which enables teachers of mathematics to both recognise and promote the mathematical abilities of school children. An illustrative case study is provided.

The Influence of Number‐sense on Children's Ability to Estimate Measures

This study aimed at clarifying the relative developmental influences of age, number‐sense and context on primary school children's ability to estimate measures. Children (6‐11 years) were first assessed on three aspects of number‐sense (mental computation, understanding of relative number magnitude and understanding of relations between numbers) and were then assessed on their estimation of length and area within each of two task contexts (a ‘story’ frame and a ‘textbook’ frame). While number‐sense was found to improve with age, estimation did not. However, an ability to use and perceive number relations, together with an understanding of the relative magnitudes of larger numbers, were found to influence children's ability to estimate area. Children of all ages were also found to estimate more accurately in the ‘textbook’ context than in the ‘story’ context. These findings are discussed with reference to the notion of estimation as a situated activity

An Evaluation of a Children's Safety Training Programme

This paper reports an experimental evaluation of a children's safety training programme,Kidscape, which aims to increase primary school children's ability to deal with four types of potentially unsafe situation: being bullied, being approached by a stranger, being subject to inappropriate intimacy from a known adult and to pressure from such adults to keep such intimacy secret. Assessments of children's safety awareness were carried out in three schools which used the programme, and in three matched control schools which did not, with children at two age levels, 6 years and 10 years. These assessments of children's awareness were made on three occasions: before, immediately after and 2‐3 months after the training programme for the experimental sample (60 children) and on corresponding occasions for the control sample (60 children). The results revealed a significant improvement in the safety awareness of the experimental (trained) group after training and also a significant difference between the groups, in favour of the trained group. However, an improved performance of the control (untrained) group suggests that factors other than the Kidscape programme itself may influence these differences. Age differences in children's wariness of the four safety situations are also discussed.

Vormleer ‐ An Innovation that failed. Geometry in Dutch Primary Education during the 19th Century

"Vormleer” (in German “Formenlehre") was a brainchild of Pestalozzi, emanating from his theories on “Anschauung”. It was intended as a subject for developing nursery and primary school children's abilities of observation, reasoning and speech. Practically, its content was taken from the basic concepts of elementary geometry. During the first half of the 19th century, a firm belief in the formal value of “Vormleer” prevailed, and Pestalozzi's ideas had great impact in Germany as well as in The Netherlands. The Dutch government supported the new Pestalozzian attempts toward educational and pedagogical improvements and “Vormleer” also received a modest place in the Dutch schools. In 1857, it was even made compulsory, in spite of teachers’ resistance to the subject. Thanks to Diesterweg's work on “Formenlehre”, the meaning and content of “Vormleer” altered during the second half of the 19th century. From then on the subject was regarded as a kind of informal, visual and practical geometry. Jan Versluys, a well‐known Dutch educator, finally succeeded in providing a clear description of the objectives and content of “Vormleer”. Nevertheless, the subject was removed from the official curriculum in 1889 and replaced by drawing. This article gives a short overview of the development of “Vormleer” in The Netherlands and discusses some possible causes for the failure of its innovation.

Effects of treatment for intestinal parasites and malaria on the cognitive abilities of schoolchildren in Zaire, Africa.

Ninety-seven Zairian schoolchildren were evaluated for cognitive ability, health status, and quality of home environment. Children successfully treated for serious types of chronic intestinal parasites demonstrated significant improvements in K-ABC Spatial Memory, supporting this task as one of the more sensitive measures to changes in general health and neurological integrity. These findings were not obtained for successful treatment of low-grade malaria infection. Children initially negative for intestinal parasites tended to come from more economically and socially favorable home environments. They also demonstrated more dramatic improvements in visual-spatial analysis tasks. The implication is that the home environment factors conducive to chronic infestation with intestinal parasites are markers for favorability of the developmental milieu affecting long-term intellectual development.

Genre skills and narrative development in the elementary school years

An important language skill for successful participation in school-based learning activities is the ability to shift one's ways of felling events. In the present study, I examine elementary school children's abilities to produce genre-specific oral narratives. Children in grades K-2 and in grade 5 were given a series of narrative tasks. After viewing a silent film, The Red Balloon , children were asked to recount the film's events as an ongoing sportscast, a factual news report, and a story. In this paper, I examine the news-reporting and storytelling narratives produced by two first graders and one fifth grader. The results from textual analyses suggest that children from both grade levels have the ability to produce genre-specific narratives. However, the results also suggest differences in the ways children achieve this shift in genre. The fifth grader utilizes more global textual strategies to achieve this shift, whereas the first graders rely upon more local textual strategies. These grade level differences are discussed in terms of their implications for research on language and cognitive development in the elementary school years.

Reduction of Cultural Bias in Simon'sEvaluating Communicative Competencefor Australian Clinical Settings

There is widespread agreement that poor communication skills lead to reductions in classroom performance. Current trends focus less on the pathology in the child and more on the characteristics of the classroom and the curriculum which contribute to failure. Data are required on the student's effectiveness as a communicator, both in listener and speaker roles in a variety of contexts. Until recently, instruments available to evaluate functional pragmatic abilities in school children and adolescents were lacking. A welcome addition to the set of tools available to clinicians is Simon's (1986) Evaluating Communicative Competence (ECC). The ECC is a set of criterion-referenced tasks which permit observation of the student's language during interactive, classroom-like activities. As with many instruments currently available to Australian clinicians, a number of items reflect their American origins. This cultural bias interferes with the purpose of the ECC: to evaluate communicative abilities. Therefore, a set...

Ocular dominance, reading and spelling ability in schoolchildren: by S.P. Newman, J.F. Wadsworth, R. Archer, and R. Hockly, Br J Ophthalmol 69:228–232, 1985

Ocular dominance, reading and spelling ability in schoolchildren: by S.P. Newman, J.F. Wadsworth, R. Archer, and R. Hockly, Br J Ophthalmol 69:228–232, 1985

Psychological Description of Young Schoolchildren's Planning Methods

Analysis of teaching practice shows that success in learning depends, in many respects, on schoolchildren's ability to foresee impending actions, to define different ways of accomplishing an assignment, to analyze the specific features of each variant, and to select the best. The ability of pupils to organize their actions in advance and the premises for the genesis and development of that ability have not been sufficiently studied in psychology, although the planning function of thought has been noted in many investigations, and certain forms of its expression in performing specific tasks have been described.

Ocular dominance, reading, and spelling ability in schoolchildren.

The association of reading disability with perceptuomotor problems has had a chequered history. This study examines the relationship between a new test of ocular dominance and reading and spelling ability in a group of 298 schoolchildren. Similar rates for unstable ocular dominance were found for poor readers as in comparable studies. The rates of unstable ocular dominance did not differ between the 'dyslexics' and the controls. These findings in a blind study question the role of this test as a diagnosis of 'dyslexia.'

The Psychology of Mathematical Abilities in Schoolchildren

The Psychology of Mathematical Abilities in Schoolchildren

Relationship of primary school children's ability to conserve number and quantity to their achievement in arithmetic and to certain other characteristics

A present-day theorist of cognitive development in young children, particularly in reference to development of mathematical concepts, prominent among educators, is Jean Piaget, a Swiss biologist, psychologist, philosopher, logician, and mathematician. The most notable Piagetian theory relative to children's cognitive development pertains to of number and quantity. Piaget uses the phrase conservation of number and to indicate a mental process called self-regulation or equilibration, a process involving reversibility of thought.' According to Piaget, a child has attained of number when he continues to say that two sets of objects matched in a one-to-one relationship have the same number of objects regardless of the spatial transformation of one of the sets. He is a conserver of liquid quantity if he continues to say that equal amounts of liquid in two containers of the same size and shape will remain equal regardless of size and shape of a third container into which liquid from one of the original containers is poured. He is a conserver of solid quantity if he continues to say that equal amounts of clay, or similar material, in two identical forms will remain equal no matter what shape the material in one of the original forms assumes. At this stage of mental development, which Piaget calls the concrete operations stage, he contends that the child's decisions do not depend upon perception alone but in the main depend upon logical thinking. Piaget has labeled the concrete operations stage as the third one of the four stages through which he contends the child passes in the development of mental structures. Stage one, identified as the Sensori-Motor Stage, he describes as preverbal in nature and covers, in general, the first two years of life. Stage two, the Pre-operational Stage, marks the beginning of language in the form of words, of thought, and of symbol manipulation. Stage two lasts from about age two years to age six and one half years. The Concrete Operations Stage, the third stage, covering the years from about six or six and one half years to about eleven, constitutes a period of cognitive development when the child obtains ideas from operations on concrete objects. At this third stage, or invariance is fully de-

Techniques for Conducting an Experiment in Physics

The school physics experiment is not only a visual aid; it is also a source of knowledge. It should stimulate the pupils' thought, provoke their curiosity, and arouse their interest. However, there are still many teachers who are not adequately impressed with the necessity of developing the cognitive abilities of schoolchildren. Sometimes the teacher uses an experimental physics demonstration only to illustrate his oral presentation. The potential function of the physics experiment as a method of comprehension and a source of knowledge is lost or poorly utilized in teaching.

Temperament and learning ability of school children.

Temperament and learning ability of school children.

Concept discovery by school children: six concepts of middleness.

54 school children of Grades 1, 3, 5 were presented with 12 sets of 3 pictures representing high, low, and intermediate degrees along each of 6 stimulus dimensions: length, height, size, position, color, and density. Ss were tested individually, using a correctional method with knowledge of results. Comparative data justified the conclusions: (1) School children's ability to discover the general concept of middleness is a function of their developmental levels. (2) Difficulty of discovering various concepts of middleness is, in addition, contingent upon the specific stimulus dimensions. This shows that children proceed from various specific concepts to a generalized concept of middleness.