Elementary School System Research Articles

Perspectives from Tomorrow's Therapists Tribune libre des futur(e)s thérapeutes

This paper presents an overview of the current role of the Occupational Therapist within the Canadian elementary school system. The roles were identified through the use of a questionnaire which was distributed to thirty-two therapists in Canada who are presently working either directly or indirectly within the educational system.

Society and the development of an elementary school system in Finland, 1866–1968

(1981). Society and the development of an elementary school system in Finland, 1866–1968. Scandinavian Journal of History: Vol. 6, No. 1-4, pp. 7-28.

Self-observation and behavior change: Applications to academic and adjustment problems through behavioral consultation

Self-observation as a behavior change technique was implemented through behavioral consultation in a public elementary school system. The self-observation procedures were introduced to two subjects with academic problems (assignment completion) and two subjects with behavioral problems (disruptive talk and interruptions, respectively). In each of the four cases, self-observation resulted in improvement in client behavior. Results are discussed within the context of previous methodological issues in the self-observation literature and the relevance of self-observation as a therapeutic tool in school settings.

Factor Analysis of the Norwegian Version of the Test Anxiety Scale for Children

The factor structure of the Test Anxiety Scale for Children was compared for 484 boys and 486 girls in seventh grade of the Norwegian elementary public school system. Alpha factor analyses were performed, coupled with standard independent cluster rotations. The results did not support an a priori factor structure across sexes. Comparisons with American factor studies of the same scale were made, and the obtained sex difference was discussed in terms of cultural differences.

Worry and Emotionality Components of Test Anxiety in Different Sex and Age Groups of Elementary School Children

Alpha factor analyses and standard independent cluster rotations were applied to scores on 12 modes of anxiety response obtained on four samples selected from 264 boys and girls in Grades 6, 7, and 8 in the Norwegian elementary public school system. The worry-emotionality distinction of test anxiety was clearly supported in all samples with the exception of Grade 6. No sex differences in the factor structure across grade levels were obtained. The findings also supported the notion that the worry-emotionality distinction represents a pattern of anxiety responses that is characteristic of an individual.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:Technics for Consultants in a Dental Health Education Program for Upper Elementary School Systems“Development and Evaluation of Self‐Applied Plaque Indices for Children” has been produced by Harold G. Hunter and C. Dennis Fink of Human Resources Research Organization and Charles L. Boring, Robert M. Morgenstein, and Louis L. Lesche“A Guide to Dental Care for the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment Program (EPSDT) Under Medicaid” has been prepared, with the aid of the Contract SRS 7349 of Social and Rehabilitation Service, HEW, by Roy L. Lindahl and Wesley O. YoungEaslick, K. A., ed. Communicating in dentistry; sources and evaluation of information and preparation of manuscripts, oral reports, and proposals for research.

THE EFFECT OF RACE OF EXAMINER ON THE MENTAL TEST SCORES OF WHITE AND BLACK PUPILS1

An entire elementary school system with 60% white and 40% black pupils was given several abiity tests group‐administered by 12 white and eight black examiners (Es). The tests measured verbal and nonverbal IQ, perceptual‐motor cognitive development, “speed and persistence” under neutral and motivating instructions, listening‐attention, and short‐term rote memory for numbers. With the exception of the “speed and persistence” test, on which white Es yielded significantly and consistently higher mean scores than black Es for both white and black pupils across grades one to six, the results for the various cognitive ability tests showed that the race of the E did not produce large or consistent effects in the testing of white and black pupils.

Determinants of Educational Expenditures in a Midwest Urban Catholic Elementary School System

Determinants of Educational Expenditures in a Midwest Urban Catholic Elementary School System

Images of Negroes in Deep South Public School State History Texts

T HE TENACITY WITH WHICH a society clings to its myths is truly an amazing, and at times, disheartening, phenomenon. Within the subculture that is identified in American society as Southern, this tenacity approaches the irrational insofar as the image of Negroes is concerned. Despite the findings of historians, sociologists, and anthropologists to the contrary, Southern whites continue to regard Negroes as docile, trusting, lazy, emotional, child-like creatures who need the guidance of the more mature, intelligent whites. The image persists in the face of the Supreme Court school desegregation decisions, the 1964 and 1965 civil rights laws and the grudging acceptance thereof, and the increasingly prominent roles played by blacks in all areas of national life. Neither the eloquence of a Martin Luther King, the intellectual brilliance of a James Baldwin, the obvious competence of a Ralph Bunche or a Thurgood Marshall, not even the athletic and leadership abilities (both qualities admired by white Southerners) of a Bill Russell, have blurred the image. This myth is durable because it is transmitted by informal learning; that is, one learns to accept the myth simply by living in a segregated society, which has as its ideological basis the belief in the inferiority of Negroes. Or, to put it more bluntly, one eats, breathes, lives, sleeps and therefore inevitably learns segregation and the myth of Negroes. Because this social learning becomes a part of one's subconscious mind set, it is by far more forceful and less easily erased than formal education. Instead, any thinking Southern white easily recognizes the influence that such have on one's mentality, and also the effort needed to overcome them. It is in overcoming these ideas, when they have no factual basis, that formal education, which at least supposedly makes use of the latest scientific information, must play an important role. Yet in the Deep South the received ideas concerning Negroes are an integral part of the curriculum of the primary and secondary school systems-in both black and white schools. Thus, social learning is sanctioned and buttressed, even today, by formal education. A study of state history texts used in the elementary and secondary school systems of three Deep South states clearly reveals the manner in which formal education perpetuates the myth. With the exception of Mississippi: A History, the texts considered in this study are all approved by the state textbook committees of the state in which they are used, they are all currently being used within the school systems, and they are all being used in required courses. All were written since the 1954 school desegre-

Initiating a Preventive-Corrective Approach in an Elementary School System

Initiating a Preventive-Corrective Approach in an Elementary School System

Parental Effectiveness and School Counselling in Elementary Education

Parenting today is as challenging as ever. People grow into their parental role, and develop their parenting skills as they counter challenges and apply daily routines in response to their children’s needs. Parental effectiveness is significant in the behavior that parents show during the interactions with their children as well as during the entire socialization process. Parents of young children are responsible for their care, their physical safety and for their physical, cognitive and emotional development; they micromanage the child’s inclusion in society and cultivate his/her socially acceptable behaviors. If they feel that they are efficient at their role as parents, then the child’s cognitive and psychosocial development is enhanced. Counselling at the primary school level could enable parents to better manage problematic situations that arise with their child’s learning and/or emotional needs by providing in-school parental education sessions which would facilitate parents to improve their parental skills. This study aims to (a) investigate and measure parental effectiveness and (b) research the perception of parents of primary school children regarding the necessity to implement school Counselling in the Cyprus Elementary School System. A sample of 120 parents of children 6-12 years old, in Limassol, Cyprus, answered two questionnaires, namely the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ) and a questionnaire we constructed to examine parental attitudes on Elementary School Counselling. Results show that parental effectiveness is significantly influenced by the educational background of the parents, the mother’s age, the status of the family, the number of children in the family and the gender of the child. At the same time, our results indicate that the majority of the participating parents acknowledge the importance of early Counselling interventions in parental educational programs at the primary education level.

An Analog Simulation of an Elementary School System in a Developing Country. Some Policy Implications

This article describes the use of the analog computer to solve a non-linear model of an elementary school system in a developing country. Using data from Costa Rica, the model shows that if the rates of both the growth of entrants and the production of new teachers continue at the same historical levels, there will be a steady deterioration of the student-teacher ratio. Two policies are advocated. 1) When the student-teacher ratio reaches a predetermined dangerous level, a signal is given to accelerate the production of new teachers. This acceleration is a function of the difference of the actual level of student-teacher ratio and the dangerous level. 2) If the student-teacher ratio becomes larger than a certain critical value (this value does not necessarily have to be the same as the maximum value that triggers the first policy), the rate of growth of new entrants becomes zero; i. e., the number of entrants will remain constant at previous levels. The introduction of these two policies in the model ...

Research on achievement determinants in educational systems: A survey

This survey of research on educational achievement reviews problems researchers have had in isolating input-output relations in public elementary and secondary school systems. Studies using student achievement as the school system output exhibit difficulty in specifying inputs with sufficient analytic and empirical clarity for them to be precisely differentiated from one another. Much past research has been unintegrated. It, therefore, has been easy to misinterpret. Only recently do researchers give evidence of communality of approaches and goals. Longitudinal data at school and individual student levels is needed if future research is to fulfill its promises. The review includes work done between 1960 and the present time.

Aptitude Test Score Changes Following Musical Training

ONE OF THE more important questions regardI ing an aptitude test is whether or not training affects scores. This is true not only for the theorist who is concerned about the innateness of abilities, or the definition of them, but also and especially for the practical test-user who will select prospective trainees on the basis of test performance. The pur pose of the present study is to examine the relation of training to the Drake Musical Aptitude Tests (1) in a public school system, a setting which makes possible a controlled comparison of differing levels of musical experience. Published research on the topic of training and musical aptitude is meager. Music students at the Eastman School of Music were tested at three-year intervals with intensive training interpolated and showed little change in scores on the well-known Seashore measures (4). Drake (1) found low corre lations between number of years of musical train ing and scores on the Drake Musical Aptitude Tests. Although both findings were interpreted as indicat ing little training effects, the question is still in doubt. For one thing, there were no control groups against which to compare scores after some tr a in ing interval. Further, the music students in the Eastman study represent a highly select group, most of whom have probably had considerable musical experience prior to their first test. If training ef fects are, like the typical teaming curve, negative ly accelerated, which is likely, little d if fe rene e would be expected with highly-trained subjects. In any event, these results shed little light on the e f fects of training upon scores of unselected subjects such as beginning and prospective music students in the elementary and secondary schools. One investigator recently attempted a controlled comparison of musical aptitude using test-score changes as a function of training. Gordon (2) pr e tested high-school students with the Drake T ests, trained them for one month on similar material,and [ compared score changes with a no-training group. | He found differences between preand posttests reflecting training effects on Musi cal Memory scores. The differences failed of significance,how ever, probably due to an extremely small number of subjects. In the present study, the relation between train ing and Drake Test scores is examined. The design, utilized in the context of a public elementary and secondary school system, has these features: (a) the lower range of level of musical training is stud ied; (b) the interval between preand posttest ex ceeds two years; and (c) a no-training group is pro vided for comparison. These features offer the best possiblity for demonstrating a training compo nent in test scores if it exists, and consequently of providing not only the aptitude theorist but the test user with useful information regarding inter pretation of the tests. Specifically, the questions not previously answered but addressed here are these: Does early training raise scores? How do these changes compare with no-training-group changes? Do training effects decrease with amount of training?

Achievement in Sixth-Grade Science Associated with Two Instructional Roles of Science Consultants: Second Report

EARLY IN 1960, a study was conduct ed by a group at the University of Chicago investigating the role of science consultants in an elementary school system. * Specifically, the investigation addressed itself to the comparative a c h i e v ement of sixth grade students in two situations in which the roles assumed by the science consultants differed. In the first situation, the science consultants worked with the teachers, and the teachers were then re sponsible for all instruction of students in the sci ence unit being studied. In the second situation, the consultants assumed the responsibility for the direct instruction of students once a week and the teachers planned and taught follow-up sessions based on the consultants' presentations. The 1960 study was concerned with student achievement dur ing the unit on light. The results of the study showed that achievement was significantly greater when the consultants worked only with the teachers than when they assumed the instructional role. This paper presents a report on a second study of similar design which was conducted in March and April of 1961. The second study involved eight sixth-grade classes in the same school system as in the first study. It also included five of the same teachers and the same two consultants. The six week unit on electricity was selected for the second study. The design of the study again involved two sit uations with four classes in each. In Situation I the consultants' time was spent in giving assistance to teachers in planning learning activities for the unit. In Situation II the consultants' time was spent in planning and giving weekly demonstrations which were attended by teachers as well as students. The teachers then planned the activities for the science periods following each demonstration. For the demonstrations, classes were combined with two classes attending each demonstration, in an effort to make the most efficient use of instructional time and materials. Each consultant's time was planned so that the total amount of time devoted to Situation I teachers was approximately equal to that devoted to Situation II classes. Cert ain materials such as flashlight kits, elec trical wiring boards, and textbooks were made available to all classes. In addition, special visual materials were prepared at the University of Chi cago for the project. To decrease the effect of individual differences in teachers, the study was planned so that teachers who participated in the project last year would be assigned to a different situation this year. That is, if the teacher was in Situation I in the 1960 study, he was assigned to Situation II in the 1961 study. This change was made for all but one of the five teachers who participated in both studies. Each of the two science consultants was assigned to work with selected groups in both Situations I and II. The study was a further attempt to answer the question, Which use of the science consultants is associated with greater learning on the part of the students? To answer this question, certainmeas ures of achievement were needed. The remainder of this paper describes the methods of evaluating student achievement and the results of applying these methods.

The Relative Achievement of the Objectives of Elementary School Science in Minnesota Schools

TO WHAT extent are the objectives of elemen tary school science being achieved in Minnesota schools? What pupil, teacher, and teaching-sit uation factors contribute to the achievement o f these objectives? What are the implications for the education of elementary school teachers? These problems were considered in a recent an alytical survey of elementary school science in Minnesota. 1* For various parts of the survey the sampling unit was the school system (used only in secur ing preliminary data), the fifth-grade teacher, or the fifth-grade class (a cluster sample). A brief preliminary questionnaire dealing with elementary school science teaching f ac ili ties and procedures was sent to 478 superintend ents of public graded elementary school systems in Minnesota, 1952. A proportionate stratified random sampl i n g of 87 fifth-grade teachers from the same schools was secured in the following manner:

Qualifications of a good teacher

The faculty of Southern Oregon College of Education initiated, during 1953, an evaluation of the curriculum which educates elementary teachers. An exploratory committee was organized-to investigate the essential qualifications which would seem desirable in a good teacher. These qualifications, once determined, would then serve as guiding criteria in reorganizing the sequence and content of courses and in the elimination or addition of experiences for the teacher education student. Administrators, parents, teachers and students were personally interviewed during the year and asked five specific questions. Some thirty school administrators were solicited, who hired graduates of the college. Five were superintendents of systems consisting of at least ten school plants, five were superintendents of smaller school systems, of ten school plants or less, five were supervisors of large school systems, five were supervisors of the smaller school systems, five were principals of elementary schools consisting of at least twenty teachers and five were principals of elementary schools of ten teachers or less. Thirty parents were also interviewed. Ten of these parents had children in the first and second grades, ten had children in grades three and four, and ten had children in the fifth and sixth grades. Thirty elementary teachers were contacted; five teachers from each grade, first through the sixth. Twelve classrooms of children were interviewed, two classrooms for each grade, one through the sixth, giving a total of four hundred elementary children questioned. In all some two hundred elementary school systems were contacted. Finally one hundred twenty college students were interviewed, thirty from each year in college.

The Content of Early and Middle Childhood Education

A considerable range of content is currently included in the elementaryschool curriculum. For example, a recent report on elementary education in California (5) noted that the state education code requires that reading, writing, language study, spelling, arithmetic, civics, geography, history, music, art, health and physical education, morals and manners, fire prevention, public safety and accident prevention, and the nature of alcohol and narcotics and their effects upon the human system be included in the curriculum. Local school systems may make additions to this list, as have the Los Angeles public schools, by requiring instruction in science, industrial arts, and Spanish (6). Fogler (14) reported that the New York City elementary-school curriculum reflects much the same breadth of content. Thirty-five elementary-school systems recognized for their excellent programs were recently surveyed by Shane (39), who described their enriched curriculums with the inclusion at all grade levels of art, music, and physical education programs; and at the intermediate level, of home economics, woodshop, and science experiences. Attention is also given in the literature to the treatment of this content as far as emphasis and time allotment is concerned. The California report (5) noted that the state education code requires that 50 percent of the school week be devoted to reading, writing, language study, spelling, arithmetic, and civics in Grades I thru VI. Givens (18), speaking before the American Association of School Administrators, cited evidence to the effect that the Three R's have first place in time and importance in every elementary-school program. Calling attention to present emphasis on the Three R's, Gray (20) reported a study of weekly time allotments to various content areas for Grades I thru VI that was included in the 1950 report of the superintendent of the Milwaukee public schools. The weekly amounts of time devoted to certain content areas in 1900 as compared with 1950 revealed decreases of approximately 10 percent in the amount of time devoted to language arts, 33 percent in the time devoted to arithmetic, and 55 percent in the time devoted to special help for pupils having trouble in any area. Comparing the same periods, the report noted

How Many Teachers Do We Need?

This article undertakes to highlight the findings of the 1952 National Teacher Supply and Demand Study, the fifth in the annual series. The investigation is designed to clarify some of the most baffling problems confronting the American elementary and high school system today. Not only counselors and guidance workers, but teachers, administrators, school board members, state department officials, local and state professional groups, legislators, civic groups, parents, citizens—all persons interested in the immediate and long-range welfare of the nation—have a stake in these vital problems.

Yankee Teachers and the Founding of Argentina’s Elementary School System

Yankee Teachers and the Founding of Argentina’s Elementary School System