Advanced Graduate Research Articles

Fellowships for Advanced Graduate Study in Linguistics

Fellowships for Advanced Graduate Study in Linguistics

The Two-Week Orientation Center Program

Orientation programs for foreign students vary in duration and coverage from one-day programs on the cam pus of the university attended, with emphasis on local institu tional practices, to six-week programs for students destined for many different universities and with major emphasis on learn ing English. In the summer of 1960 for the first time, two universities—Minnesota and Indiana—were asked to experi ment with two-week orientation sessions for groups of advanced graduate students carefully selected for English language pro ficiency and academic competence. Major emphasis was placed on orientation to the American university system and to practices in the specific fields of study of the participants. The results would seem to indicate that this type of short- term orientation, while fast moving and, thus, wearing on the participants and the instructors alike, produced among the overseas students some notable insights into graduate educa tion in America.

Advanced Graduate Training in Special Education

Advanced Graduate Training in Special Education

Special Travel Grants in Dermatology Available

The American Academy of Dermatology and Syphilology announces the appropriation of funds to be allotted to dermatologie investigators, advanced graduate students or dermatologists, for the express purpose of aiding them to attend meetings of dermatologie importance abroad. The amount of the individual grant will in no case exceed $500 and may be less. For the present this offer of aid is limited to the year 1957. Obviously, the applicant will need some finances of his own. Applicants for a grant must be sponsored by a member of the American Academy of Dermatology and Syphilology. This should be in the form of a letter or recommendation from the sponsor. Applicants must be citizens of the United States or Canada. They should submit full information concerning their training in dermatology or related fields and a complete list of their publications including those in press. The applicant should also submit some evidence of definite financial need. The meeting or meetings which he proposes to attend should be named. All of the information required in this paragraph should be submitted in quin-tuplicate (5 copies) not later than May 1, 1957 to the Secretary of the undersigned Committee. No attempt should be made to directly contact the other members of the Awards Committee. Any award granted is without future obligation. The Committee, however,, hopes that recipients of this award who may later enter private practice will attempt to repay without interest the amount of their award. This is done in the hopes that eventually a self perpetuating fund may be formed. Signed :

Reference groups of rural high school youth.

The hypotheses of this paper are the ones long held in sociology that, in a pluralistic society such as our own, an individual is moved to rank the groups to which he belongs or which he otherwise knows about and that his attitudes and behavior reflect the dominant values of the top groups in this hierarchy more than those of the lower groups. Recently this concept of the highly-valued groups has been given the label groups, a term apparently used first by Herbert Hyman (i). This paper considers only those reference groups which are also membership groups (that is, groups to which the individuals studied themselves belong). The data consists of answers to questionnaires filled out by all students (except for those absent on the typical school day when the survey was taken) in four rural high schools, representing widely different areas in Minnesota. The questionnaires were administered in classrooms by an advanced graduate student at the University of Minnesota, who assured the subjects of anonymity and of the legitimate purposes of the study. The main question used to ascertain reference groups was In your life which is most important? and permitted checking of the following: (a) school chums; (b) (uncles, aunts and cousins); (c) social clubs; (d) work groups; (e) church groups; (f) immediate family (father, mother, brothers, sisters). Of the 582 students filling out the questionnaire, I8 provided no answer to this question and 54 gave more than one answer; both of these categories of individuals were excluded from the analysis. Only four students gave relatives as their reference group; the small

The Southern Regional Education Program

O N February 8, 1948, the southern governors approved a compact to develop regional programs in graduate and professional education. The legislatures of thirteen states have now ratified the compact and Virginia's Legislature has moved to amend the state Constitution to permit ratification. In the meantime Virginia is cooperating to the extent possible in this regional enterprise.' The Southern Governors' Conference, which fathered the interstate compact and brought the Southern Regional Education Board into being, was motivated by two major concerns. First, the demand for more and better facilities in the South for advanced graduate and professional work was growing, and such facilities cost large amounts of money. Second, educational institutions should make their full con-

Notes on Southern Culture Patterns

T HIS is a preliminary notation on a succession of field studies in the modern culture of the South, begun in 1946, and organized as a series of ethnological field investigations of five exhibits of living. Each community was chosen, in the light of previous social science research concerning the South, as being representative of a subculture. Our objective was to determine if possible, not only the cultural framework of the South, but also to attain some precision as regards the constituent subcultures or subregional variations of culture. Field parties were sent to the communities in question and maintained there for from nine months to a year. Their job in each case was to cover the whole culture in the usual manner of social anthropology, using techniques of participant observation, interview, questionnaire, etc. The materials gathered are now in course of publication as a series of monographs. In this article we propose merely to set out a tabulation of patterns showing some of the of these several subcultures. First, a few words about the materials. The five communities taken as representatives of their respective subcultures were: (1) A plantation community in the Black Belt of Alabama (labelled Plantation in accompanying table); (2) A Piedmont community in South Carolina: three different studies were made here-(a) upper class old aristocracy (Piedmont Town), (b) white cotton textile mill workers (Piedmont Mill), (c) the Negro neighborhoods of the community (Piedmont Negro); (3) A Piney Woods community in southern Alabama (Pinebelt); (4) A mountain community in western North Carolina (Mountains); (5) A fishing community on the coast of North Carolina (Coastal). It is not supposed that these five communities exhaust all the culture patterns of the South, but on the basis of previous work in social science and the humanities in this region, we believe that they are fairly typical exhibits of five subcultural configurations. The field parties kept notes on 4 x 6-inch sheets of paper which were filed according to the principal categories of the Yale Outline of Cultural Materials, plus certain other categories which developed out of the field work itself. We have gone through the notes and compiled the outstanding patterns and complexes as revealed in this material, which is herewith offered in preliminary form as a check list which may be of value to others working in this field. The chiefs of field parties were all advanced graduate students in social anthropology and sociology. They are as follows: Plantation, Morton Rubin; Piedmont Town, Ralph C. Patrick, Jr.; Piedmont Negro, Hylan Lewis; Piedmont Mill, John Kenneth Morland; Pinebelt, Charles Peavy; Mountains, Vladimir Hartman. John Gillin, who directed the total study, also served as chief of field party for the study of the Coastal community. In presenting the following tabulation, several points must be underlined. First, this is not an analysis of North American culture in general, and, in fact, no such total study of the civilization of the United States has yet been made. In the absence of such data it is impossible to say what is distinctively Southern with any degree of finality. Second, however, we have tried to pick out and tabulate herewith those traits which seem, on the basis of general knowledge, to be especially characteristic of the South, or which are given special emphasis there. This means that the present tabulation is not complete, after the manner of an encyclopedic listing of all traits encountered. Many traits which seem to be common to most of North American culture are not included in the present table. Obvious examples may be thought of in technology, the use of money, general financial and credit systems, much content of formal education, general patterns of dress, and the like. Comments from readers who have a special knowledge of culture are invited. When these cautions are noted, it will be seen, however, that the present material indicates a considerable degree of difference between certain of the subcultures so far as content is concerned. Mountains and Coastal Fringe are quite unlike each other in many respects and in turn differ from the Plantation, the Piedmont and the Piney Woods subcultures. In other words. when viewed in terms of content, the area of the South is not culturally homogeneous. And this is as we should expect,

Home and Family-Life Education

DURING the three years since the previous review on this topic appeared, a very considerable amount of research dealing with homes and family members has been completed. Much of this research has implications for education since it often shows what needs to be taught or discloses facts and principles useful in guiding students in the solution of problems of everyday living in homes. Studies showing nutritional lacks of children or adults, or showing undesirable food habits, problems of adolescents in relationships with parents or siblings, lacks in essential information on the part of consumers, or effects of housing on family life, are all illustrations of research which is grist for the mill of the educator, especially the curriculum worker in the field of home and family life. Psychological studies of the behavior of those who live in families from the nursery-school years to the most elderly person now served by adult education are also pertinent to education for family life. So, too, the research into family behavior and into community life in its relations to families can supply information for the educator in this field. What should be taught to students from the elementary level to the advanced graduate level or in adult education can be ascertained best at times by a study of how people now behave, what they know or do not know, and what attitudes they have which will encourage or block their learning. Yet these studies of people as they are individually or as they behave in relation to others cannot be reviewed here, altho it should be remembered that they supply one type of essential tool material for the educator. Studies reviewed in this chapter are those dealing rather directly with teaching in the field of home and family-life education. Even with this limitation the scope is broad, since it includes studies treating of courses and curriculums, educational theory and procedures, students' problems and abilities, and administrative problems. Also, since family-life education is now becoming a recognized part of the responsibility of the schools from nursery schools to adult groups as well as in the graduate college, the scope of this review must be great.

Is Personality Development a Graduate School Function?

IN ADDITION to the communication of knowledge, technique, and skill, contemporary education is slowly but consciously beginning to give attention to the development of personal and social qualities considered basic to a successful career. Graduate faculties, however, are so little concerned with this aspect of education that many of them doubt whether personality development is a graduate school function. It is the purpose of this article to present the opinion of a cross-section of distinguished American educators on the issues implied in the title of this article. The 204 leaders were from 45 states and included 85 graduate deans, 66 presidents, 34 deans and faculty members, and i9 representatives of precollegiate education. Readers interested in a more detailed analysis of the implications of the opinion of these leaders on this and other aspects of doctoral study are referred to the writer's recent book, Toward Improving Ph. D. Programs, published by the American Council on Education. Perhaps no issue raised by the comprehensive study of Ph. D. programs was of greater interest than that of broadening the doctoral candidate's training to include more than purely intellectual discipline. There was substantial agreement to the effect that the prospective college teacher and research worker should be educated to work and live cooperatively, should be willing to assume social responsibility, and should live as active and rich a life as possible. There was likewise, explicit as well as implicit in the statements made, rather widespread recognition of the fact that the personal and social qualities of the average graduate student leave much to be desired in such respects. Despite this meeting of minds there was nevertheless little agreement on remedial measures; and there were rather marked differences of opinion over whether or not any remedy fell within the proper scope of advanced graduate education. Many of those who thought it promising and thoroughly realistic to use the dynamic environment of a graduate school to modify the personal and social characteristics of doctoral candidates were disturbed at the factors of negative selection that attract atypical personalities to scholarly careers. Several graduate deans were convinced that better financial rewards and social prestiges enabled medicine, law, business, and other professional schools to attract the best minds and personalities. In their opinion the way out lies not so much in rehabilitating individuals as in reshaping university careers so that with selective admissions the graduate school can attract abler recruits. Almost every objective investigation has indicated nevertheless that we can dismiss the notion that doctoral recruits are of inferior intellectual caliber. A recent check in the social science fields showed that onethird of all first-year graduate students had been graduated from college with high honors or equivalent distinction. The proportion of honors students at the doctoral level of study is more than double that for first-year graduate students. The advanced graduate school probably gets too many of the greasy grind type of mind and of mentally able individuals who have not yet chosen a career. The impression that doctoral candidates are more of an intellectual than a social elite appears to be better justified. A poll of 4,667 members of the American Association of University Professors, for example, indicated the following social origins, according to the occupational status of their fathers: businessmen, 26.6 percent; farmers, 24.7 percent; manual workers, I 2.I percent;

How a Collegiate Nursing Program Developed in a Negro College

MISS LANCASTER (Lincoln School for Nurses, New York City; B.A., West Virginia State College, Institute, West Virginia; postgraduate study, Columbia University) is assistant director and instructor. Division of Nurse Education, Hampton Institute. At present she is on leave of absence pursuing advanced graduate studies at the University of Toronto School of Nursing.

Pitch Scales

Experiments were conducted to secure data for constructing and comparing pitch scales. Eighteen advanced graduate students in psychology served as subjects. The following observational methods (all variations of the method of equal sense distances) were used: (1) bisection, (2) fractionation, and (3) equating supraliminal pitch extents. The extents involved in (3) were a little greater than a full tone. The scales derived from the various sets of data were compared not only with each other but also with the scales reported by Stevens and Volkmann and with a j.n.d. scale based on findings of Shower and Biddulph. The scales were not in satisfactory agreement, except in restricted cases; and the differences could not be attributed to experimental error. Any pitch scale apparently depends, in some measure, upon the group of persons who made the required judgments and upon the particular method of observation employed. A sort of “generalized scale” based on many experiments involving different groups of subjects and different methods of observation may be found to have scientific utility; but such a scale will have to be used with appropriate caution. The experiments are now being repeated with a group of sixteen trained amateur musicians participating as observers.

The Reliability of the Reading of an English Essay Test: A Second Study

THE measurement of ability in English composition has long been one of the baffling problems in the evaluation of pupil achievement at all levels of education. The notorious unreliability of the scoring of the ordinary English theme has caused many teachers to abandon it in favor of the more objective test. Objective tests unquestionably have an important place in the measurement of usage in English, but they suffer certain limitations. Ordinarily they make no attempt to find out how well the pupil can write. The pupil is presented with various samples of writing and asked to identify and correct errors or to indicate the relative order of the excellence of the samples. Thus objective tests tend to measure the pupil's knowledge of good English form, but they do not investigate directly his ability to write English. Moreover, they tend to be atomistic; that is, they break down English usage into many specific and measurable details, whereas writing itself is a complex unitary process. Such considerations as these have led to attempts to find ways of improving English tests of the essay type. Brigham and Stalnaker have been among the most persistent investigators in this area. One of the methods used by Stalnaker in his early efforts to obtain samples of the writing of college Freshmen was to provide them with groups of notes and to ask them to write essays based on the notes. Carefully trained specialists in English-usually advanced graduate students-then read the papers with certain specific objectives in mind. Such a procedure has resulted in reading reliabilities ranging