Irish Secondary Schools Research Articles

Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities among Irish Primary and Secondary School Children

Sex differences among 1199 Irish primary and secondary school children (594 girls and 605 boys) were investigated for 13 cognitive abilities. Girls tended to obtain higher means than boys, except for spatial abilities. Girls scored substantially higher on Irish studied as a second language.

The Roman Catholic Ethos of Irish Secondary Schools, 1924‐62, and Its Implications for Teaching and School Organization

The Roman Catholic Ethos of Irish Secondary Schools, 1924‐62, and Its Implications for Teaching and School Organization

Some personality correlates of intelligence and educational attainment in Iran.

Summary. The Persian form of the EPI and Eysenck's Psychoticism Scale were administered to a large group (about 23,000) of Iranian secondary school graduates, aged between 18 and 19, taking the Pahlavi University entrance examination. The latter consisted of a Persian adaptation of the Otis (Advanced Level) and five multiple choice tests of academic attainment. Analysis of results for two randomly selected groups of boys and one group of girls revealed a consistently negative correlation between measures of cognitive performance and psychoticism. A somewhat less consistent but positive correlation was observed for the extraversion scale. There was little correlation between neuroticism and measures of intelligence or achievement.Considering the joint effects of extraversion and psychoticism, stable extravert subjects seemed to have performed best on tests of ability and attainment. Psychotic introverted girls, however, seem to be superior to their extraverted counterparts. This sex difference persists with regard to a number of other dependent variables.On the whole, the personality patterns of more intelligent and academically successful Iranian students would appear to be more like those of younger British pupils (below 15 years) than their own age‐mates. The superior correlation between the psychoticism scale and measures of cognitive efficiency indicates the need for further exploration of this dimension as a potentially important aspect of normal personality.

Extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism as measured by Eysenck's inventories in Iran.

Summary This paper presents results obtained with a slightly modified version of the Persian form of the EPI (PEPI) which also included Eysencks' recently published psychoticism scale. Subjects were 1009 Iranian secondary school graduates (768 boys and 241 girls) aged between 18 and 20 years taking the Pahlavi University entrance examination. Retesting of a small group of subjects under ordinary conditions showed little distortion of the mean scores that might be attributed to the highly competitive test situation. The test retest reliability of the scales over a five-month period, however, was undesirably low, except for the N-scale. The P-scale was found to correlate positively with neuroticism. Iranian female subjects had scored higher than their male counterparts on neuroticism but lower on both extraversion and psychoticism. In comparison with British norms, Iranian subjects had scored higher on both N and P scales, the difference on the latter being particularly striking. These findings are discusse...

Otis Self-Administering Tests of Mental Ability, Intermediate Form, in Iran

A Persian form of the Otis Self-administering Tests of Mental Ability, Intermediate Form, was administered to a representative sample of Iranian secondary school pupils (944 boys and 554 girls). Iranian Ss as a group scored strikingly lower than their American counterparts. Boys scored significantly higher than girls both in different grades and across grades. Scores correlated significantly with a past academic performance criterion. Test-retest reliability coefficients over a 2-wk. interval were low relative to those given in the test manual.

An Analysis of Two Hypotheses Concerning the Relationship between Creativity and Intelligence

The purpose of this study was to test McNemar's hypothesis that “…at the high IQ levels there will be a very wide range of creativity, whereas as we go down to the average IQ and down to the lower levels the scatter for creativity will be less and less.” The sample consisted of 867 American eighth-grade students from twenty-three junior high schools in three states plus 182 Irish secondary school students from suburban Dublin. In the American sample, divergent thinking was measured by four tests adopted from those of Torrance. The Lorge-Thorndike was used as a measure of intelligence. Selected tests from the Minnesota Tests of Creative Thinking and the AH 4 General Test of Intelligence were administered to the Irish sample. In both samples the IQ distributions were divided into three equal ranges. A one-way analysis of variance and a correlational analysis were performed. Results offered only slight support for the McNemar hypothesis. The authors suggest three possible explanations of these findings. Their major hypothesis has to do with a number of validity problems associated with creativity tests.

THE APPLICATION OF A HIGH‐GRADE INTELLIGENCE SCALE (AH5) IN IRAN

Summary. A Persian form of Heim's AH5, a high‐grade group intelligence scale, was given to a representative sample of Iranian secondary school pupils (575 boys, 433 girls, aged 17–18 years). Iranian subjects as a group were found to score substantially lower than their British counterparts. Girls were inferior to boys on both verbal and non‐verbal scales of the test and there were significant differences between the three fields of specialisation.