Mental Maturity Research Articles

The Maturity Factor in the Grade Placement of Certain Punctuation Skills in Bibliography Form

Among factors influencing grade placement in curriculum construc tion, maturity is receiving greater recognition than ever before in edu cational history. By maturity, we mean that stage in a child's develop ment when learning of specific knowledges or skills takes place with a minimum amount of instruction and drill because the child is ready, as an integrated biological and intellectual organism, to learn. Evidence of physiological or physical maturity or ripeness have been established without a doubt. Nor would anyone question that in the intellectual field as well, certain degrees of mental maturity are necessary to the mastery of specific skills. Epochal among the researches carried on in this field are those in reading, spelling, and arithmetic. What, for example, has done more to mitigate the discouragement of both pupil and teacher than the discovery that a mental age of at least six years is probably essential before a child can successfully be taught to read % If it is a waste of time to try to teach reading to a mental five-year old, the curriculum can be revised so that the child may have other worthwhile preparatory activities which will help him to establish a favorable attitude toward reading when he is ready to get meaning from the printed page. The child whose read ing instruction is delayed until he is psychologically and mentally ready to read does not form a permanent distaste for reading, because he has not been forced to read before he is mature enough to do so. The child can succeed when he first begins reading, and much has been accomplished as far as attitude is concerned. Time has actually been saved, since the child who is ready to read learns much more quickly than the child who is not mature enough to get the maximum benefit from instruction. The first research carried on by Washburne has been supplemented by other investigations concerning specific reading skills, until at the present time it is possible to predict with some degree of certainty at just what levels certain reading skills can be most effectively taught. Spelling, as a measurable field of investigation, has been rather thor oughly explored to discover at what age level children can most eco nomically learn to spell specific words. 449

A Study of the California Test of Mental Maturity: Advanced Battery

The California Test of Mental Maturity is one of the newer intelli gence tests which has attracted wide attention within the last year or two. An important reason for the interest in it is that it attempts to make a diagnostic measurement of mental functions. The test is designed to measure the following types of mental ability : memory, spatial re lationships, reasoning, and vocabulary. Each of these parts contains several sub-tests. The test yields three intelligence quotients?an IQ for language factors and an IQ for non-language factors, as well as the usual type of IQ based on total scores. The IQ for language factors is based on tests of delayed recall, number quantity, inference, and vocabu lary. The IQ for non-language factors results from tests of immediate recall, sensing right and left, manipulation of areas, foresight in spatial relations, opposites, similarities, analogies, number series, and number quantity.

Reducing First-Grade Failures

The reduction of the percentage of failure in Grade I has been coincident with a more scientific determination of each child's readiness to read, a change from a logical to a psychological method of approach to the actual teaching of reading, and the development of techniques for discovering and remedying specific individual difficulties in children otherwise ready to read. Unfortunately, remedial techniques do not have as large a share in preventing first-grade failure as educators would like to see them have. This failure may be accounted for on several grounds. In the first place, most failures in Grade I are due to lack of mental maturity or of readiness to read, and in such cases remedial techniques cannot prove effective. In the second place, lack of specific training in recognizing and remedying various types of reading difficulty prevents many first-grade teachers from doing anything about the failures in their classes. Such a teacher only knows that her teaching has not taken, and her remedy is to repeat the dose. The matter of time is important. To give individual testing and individual remedial instruction with a group of thirty or more is almost impossible in a school day of three and one-half school hours. However, it is possible to set aside the early portion of the afternoon on perhaps two days of the week to carry on such work. In this connection the point should be emphasized that such effort may be largely wasted if the child in question is not actually ready to read. Of children actually ready to read, only a few, usually not more than one or two in a room, will be found to have difficulties requiring detailed individual diagnosis and treatment. If a large percentage of children who are ready to read appear to be having specific or general difficulties, the methods and thoroughness of the teaching had better be investigated. Too often in practice a child must have failed and developed

Mental and Social Maturity in Relation to Certain Indicators of the Degree of Juvenile Delinquency

Mental and Social Maturity in Relation to Certain Indicators of the Degree of Juvenile Delinquency

Mental and Social Maturity in Relation to Certain Indicators of the Degree of Juvenile Delinquency

appreciable relationship to delinquent behavior. Research, such as that of Ackerson (1), denotes that in certain definite respects mental development is not without differential significance in the problem of juvenile misconduct. Reckless and Smith (6) point out the variety of angles from which the social backgrounds of delinquents have been studied effectively. In line with investigations of the relationship of intelligence and delinquency on the one hand and social factors and delin-

High-School Students’ Opinions on Reasons for Failure in High-School Subjects

graduate work. Some of the scores on the college ability test were well in excess of the 100th P.E. for entering freshmen who, according to the psychology of mental tests, have reached their mental maturity, a condi tion which permits one to say that the mental capacity (not ability) of the best freshman is equal to that of the best graduate students. Accord ing to such a premise there are some part-time students who have capacity warranting a rank with the highest in a graduate group. A comparison of the mental ability of 286 extra-mural students of gen eral and applied psychology with freshman norms is given in Table VI. The lower deciles are closer together than the upper. These data are suggestive of a condition found in a number of classes studied. Although there is no inferiority in any decile of this particular group, it has been found that while the extra-mural classes are equal or superior in mental ability, there is a lowest 10 to 20 per cent which is definitely inferior to the lowest 10 to 20 percent of the full-time groups with which com parisons were made. This condition tends to prevail in both mental ability and achievement. Selection, however, operates speedily to re move this tail-end/ ' Allowing for the selection it becomes apparent that part-time students add to the quality of the student body.

On the Technique of Establishing the “Goodness” of an Intelligence Test

The following discussion on the technique of certain methods of evalu ating tests is the result of examining somewhat critically the methods pro posed by Dr. V. A. Jones in his recent monograph, The Effect of Age and Experience on Tests of Intelligence.1 The purpose of Dr. Jones' monograph is to investigate the influence of chronological age upon mental age. The methods used are those of partial correlation and the K index. The latter will be explained presently. It is, of course, important to measure mental maturity as distinct as possible from the effects of chronological age, environmental factors, health, etc. Jones has a group of twenty-six tests which he ranks from one to twenty-six as he considers best for measuring MA independently from CA. The total population used in this study is 487. The author classifies the population into three groups: (1) Richmond Sampling, 208 white children from the lower half of the fifth grade. (2) Miscellaneous Sampling, grades 5-7, population 179. (3) Miscellaneous Sampling, grades 3-4, population of 100. The tests studied were the subtests, totaling twenty-six, from the following: National Intelligence Test, Scale A; National Intelligence Test, Scale B ; Haggerty Intelligence Examination, Delta 2 ; Otis Group Intelligence Scale, Advanced; and the Otis Group Intelligence Scale, Primary, for grades 3 and 4.2 Jones uses two criteria to establish the goodness of a test ; first, that the partial correlation between rsma<ca should approach 1, where s can stand for any subtest ; second, that the partial correlation rs ca.ma should approach zero.

Sex Differences in Intelligence-Test Scores in the Elementary School

The outcome of any intelligence test may be regarded as con ditioned by a series of factors, such as age, sex, native ability, school training, practice, and race. Of these factors, comparatively little attention has been paid to sex, perhaps because the sex difference was regarded as of little magnitude or of little practical import. In the classifications of pupils, for example, the scores of either sex have been, doubtless quite properly, compared with the single standard score for the age or grade in question, which has been itself derived from the scores obtained by hundreds of children of both sexes combined, to furnish the standard age score or the standard grade score. Most investigators, however, have been aware of the existence of a small sex difference, and this difference has at least an aca demic interest when it is considered in its possible theoretical rela tions to the rate of physical and mental maturity of the two sexes during childhood and adolescence. Moreover, it possesses still greater interest when the direction of the sex difference is discovered to be reversed in the secondary school. It seems worth while, there fore, to assemble pertinent facts concerning the sex differences in elementary-school scores and then to compare this situation with that revealed in the high school. In this paper, accordingly, I shall present facts concerning two well-known intelligence tests designed for elementary-school use, namely, the National Intelli gence Test, Scale A, and the Illinois General Intelligence Scale. Subsequently, I shall present facts concerning sex differences dis covered by the use of Army Alpha in the high school.

Accessory Causes of First-Grade Retardation

Previous articleNext article FreeAccessory Causes of First-Grade RetardationEdna A. CollamoreEdna A. Collamore Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Elementary School Journal Volume 24, Number 10Jun., 1924 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/455623 Views: 6Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Educational Significance of Physical Status and of Physiological, Mental, Emotional, and Social Maturity

Educational Significance of Physical Status and of Physiological, Mental, Emotional, and Social Maturity

The Nature and Educational Significance of Physical Status and of Mental, Physiological, Social and Emotional Maturity.

The Nature and Educational Significance of Physical Status and of Mental, Physiological, Social and Emotional Maturity.

University and Educational Intelligence

THE United States Public Health Service has, in co-operation with the Bureau of Education, collected information as to the present status of sex education in high schools, and the Bureau has published a statistical summary in Bulletin, 1922, No. 14. The proportion of the number of schools giving some sort of instruction in matters pertaining to sex to the number of schools from which returns were obtained (about half of the total number of high schools in the country) is 41 per cent., varying between 17 per cent., in New Hampshire, and 100 per cent., in Utah. Sex education is classified as “emergency”—through lectures or occasional talks by members of the school staff or by physicians, nurses, State health officers, social workers, or ministers, sex hygiene exhibits, pamphlets, etc.— and “integrated” i.e. given incidentally in teaching the subjects of the regular curriculum. Although the former method is more frequently resorted to, a large majority of the principals, including those who at present provide no sex instruction, are in favour of the latter. So, evidently, are the authorities of the Public Health Service. These hold the view that “sex education should not be restricted to a certain body of information given at a special time and place, but rather should it be spread over a considerable time and given in various relations.” They believe, in short, in breaking down the sex taboo. They point out, however, that few teachers have the combination of mental maturity, poise, sanity, sympathy, accurate knowledge of facts and ability to present them impersonally, and tact, which are requisite for beneficent sex education.

David Friedrich Strauss

SOME years ago Eduard Zeller, who is spending the evening of a long life in learned leisure at Stuttgart, published a selection of the letters of his friend Strauss.' The personality of Strauss was already well known to us from his published books2 and from personal notices in his Literarische Denkwiirdigkeiten, as well as from what Zeller has told us in his friend's biography3 published shortly after the death of Strauss. We become still better acquainted with him through his letters, which exhibit his mental development and maturity, his struggles, conflicts, doubts, and recovered faith, and reveal him as a man of integrity, into whose clear, thoughtful eyes we can look with warmest sympathy. Even one who is not concerned with the scientific questions which naturally occupy a large place in these letters, especially one who is interested, if only a little, in philosophical, aesthetic, and theological problems, will find himself richly rewarded by reading them. One thing only we miss: instead of having only Strauss' side in learned or personal discussion, or in friendly Ausgewdhlte Briefe von Friedrich Strauss. Herausgegeben und erlautert von EDUARD ZELLER. Mit einem Portrat in Lichtdruck. Bonn: Emil Strauss, 1895. 2Gesammelte Schriffen von Friedrich Strauss. Nach des Verfassers letztwilligen Verfiigungen zusammengestellt. Eingeleitet und mit erklarenden Nachweisungen versehen von EDUARD ZELLER. Mit zwei Portraits des Verfassers in Stahlstich. 12 Bande. Bonn: Emil Strauss, 1876-8. (New editions of the separate works of Strauss are still being continually published.) 3David Friedrich Strauss, in seinem Leben und in seinen Schriften geschildert von EDUARD ZELLER. Bonn: Emil Strauss, I874 (English translation, 1874). Cf. Friedrich Strauss und die Theologie seiner Zeit, von DR. A. HAUSRATH. 2 Bande. Heidelberg: Fr. Bassermann, 1876, 1878. SAMUEL ECK, Friedrich Strauss, Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta'sche Nachfolger, I899; an excellent book. A severe criticism of Strauss, which, however, does not concern so much the author of The Life of Jesus as that of The Old and New Faith, will be found in the Unzeitgemassen Betrachtungen, of FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (Erstes Stuck: David Strauss, der Bekenner und Schriftsteller, Werke, Band I).