The men. (1) How does the test correlate with scholarship? highest correlation was plus .498. (2) Will the test give a prognosis of failures, probation cases and superior scholars? About two and one-half times as many low score men as high score men were eliminated within a year. (3) How does the test correlate with individual subjects of study? As usual the highest r is with English (.497). The other r's range between this point and .111 for graphics. (4) Is there an increasing superiority shown by the test scores as we ascend from E to A in scholarship scores? "There is some superiority of each scholarship grade over the scholarship grade just below." (5) What percentage of exception is there at the high and low end of scholarship scale? 18.2% of A men fall below average Alpha score and 32.8% of E men rose above average Alpha score. (6) What is the diagnostic value of different parts of Alpha for different school subjects? No value is at present to be attached to Alpha as an aid in choice of subjects of study. A. T. POFFENBERGER (Columbia) 859. Rоот, W. T., Correlations between Binet Tests and Group Tests. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1922, 13, 286-292. Six hundred children of school grades one to twelve were tested with the Stanford Revision and with thirteen of the group intelligence tests. This report presents correlations of the Binet with each of the group tests. A survey of the coefficients shows that no one group test is best for all grades, but that the test must be chosen according to the particular school grade one wishes to test. The grades are then grouped into sets of four and the correlations for the different group tests calculated. Here also the same test is not always the best for all groups. Cause for the variation of test efficiency from grade to grade is found primarily in the emphasis on different special abilities in the different tests. A. T. POFFENBERGER (Columbia) 860. CHAPMAN, J. C., and DALE, A. B., A Further Criterion for the Selection of Mental Test Elements. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1922, 13, 267-276. This paper deals with the question of the effect of environmental influence and training on performance in mental tests. A new criterion is proposed which will evaluate test elements with reference to weight placed on hereditary brightness rather than on environmental influence and training on performance in mental tests. A new criterion is proposed which will evaluate test elements with reference to weight placed on hereditary brightness rather than on environmental training. Two groups of children differing in chronological age by an average of five years and making equivalent total scores in the National Intelligence Test are found to attain different scores in the five tests constituting the examination. The opposites test, in which the young group excels, seems to depend to a high degree on native intelligence, while arithmetical problems and substitution depend more upon the environmental factor. On the basis of this study the legitimacy of the I. Q. method of estimating intelligence is called into question. A. T. POFFENBERGER (Columbia) 861. FREEMAN, F. N., Research versus Propaganda in Visual Education. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1922, 13, 257-266. Freeman warns of the reaction against visual education which must follow its widespread and uncritical adoption. He shows that visual education, especially in the form of moving pictures, cannot be a cure for all educational ills, and that the function of visual presentation can be determined only through patient scientific research. Specific cases in which this form of instruction is valuable are cited and many questions needing answers are suggested. The whole argument is timely, for the motion picture industry, with only a little encouragement from educators, could soon flood the schools with superfluous and costly equipment. A. T. POFFENBERGER (Columbia) 862. BALDWIN, B. T., The Relation between Mental and Physical Growth. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1922, 13, 193-203. The paper presents data on the analysis and significance of physical growth curves, the interpretation of similar data on mental growth curves, and the relation between physical and mental growth. From the physical growth curves now established, knowing the chronological and physiological ages of a given child, his height at any later age may be predicted within a probable error of known amount. The same kind of prediction for mental traits will be possible as soon as enough cases have been examined over a long period of time. Baldwin believes the prediction of I. Q. to be possible with an error to 4 to 7 points. For a group of 49 girls the correlation between height and mental age was found to be plus .53 (with chronological age constant). The author makes a plea for "intensive consecutive studies throughout a series of years on the same individuals." A. T. POFFENBERGER (Columbia) 863. KNIGHT, F. B., Pitfalls in Rating Schemes. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1922, 13, 204-213. Two pitfalls in rating schemes are reported: (1) The tendency to overrate oneself in desirable traits, the exaggeration being greater the more desirable the trait. The rating of a group of interests according as one thinks he possesses them, as the ideal individual would possess them, and as the average individual possesses them, and the study of the interrelations among these ratings may be a means of diagnosing such character traits as sentimentality, conceit, peculiarity, etc., which cannot yet be measured more directly. (2) The overlapping of traits. Whenever several traits are rated by the same judge, the correlations among them are too high, due most probably to the influence of general impression. Knight shows, however, that the degree of overlapping is dependent on the method of obtaining the judgments, so that the interpretation of intercorrelations must be made in the light of the method used to obtain them. A. T. POFFENBERGER (Columbia) 864. PINTNER, R., and KELLER, R., Intelligence Tests of Foreign Children. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1922, 13, 214-222. The Binet examination records of 674 foreign speaking children representing eighteen different nationalities showed a decidedly lower I. Q. than found in an English speaking group from the same schools, "whether because of actual lower intelligence, or because of a language handicap." When the Pintner nonlanguage test was given to a group of these children, the I. Q.'s of both foreign and English speaking children were raised, but the increase was much greater for the foreign speaking. The correlation between Stanford Revision and a series of performance tests was higher for the English speaking than for the foreign speaking, while 23 per cent more foreign speaking than English speaking children had higher scores in the performance tests than in the Binet tests. A. T. POFFENBERGER (Columbia) 865. KNIGHT, F. B., The Significance of Unwillingness to be Tested. J. of Applied Psychol., 1922, 6, 211-212. Sixty-five teachers were given the Thorndike College entrance examination, Part I, and told they could sign their names or not as they preferred. Thirty-nine signed their names, 26 did not. The average score of signed papers was 100, of the unsigned, 75. Only four of the 26 unsigned papers equalled or excelled the average of the signed group. Only five of the 39 signed papers were so low or lower than the average of the unsigned tests. E. MULHALL ACHILLES (Columbia) 866. Town, C. H., A Mass Mental Test for Use with Kindergarten and First Grade Children. J. of Applied Psychol., 1922, 6, 89-112. An attempt was made to devise a mass test for kindergarten and first grade children which would bring into play mental activities which Binet found developed in young school children and which would not require verbal or written response from the child. Whenever possible material from the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale was adopted. The "Cross Out" method was linked with the Binet problems and a "Picture Game" evolved. The Picture Game consists of a sixteen page picture book, five by seven inches. A reproduction is given in the article. The procedure was to make sure the child knew the meaning of " cross out." After asking the child if he saw a rabbit and a rat, he was told to cross out the rabbit and this was illustrated by the examiner crossing out a rabbit. After two such demonstrations the experimenter was ready to begin Test 1. The first page consisted of four colors, red, blue, green and yellow, and the child was told to cross out red. The second page was similar to the first, but he was told to cross out the blue. Test 2 required the child to cross out the nose of one little girl's picture, the eyes of the second, and the mouth of the third. The tests numbered thirteen, the thirteenth being "drawing the diamond" on an empty page after the experimenter had drawn one on the blackboard. Four hundred nineteen kindergarten children of average age 5.5 and 22 first grade classes containing 778 children of average age 6.9 were tested. The results confirm the impression that the Picture Game is adapted to use with kindergarten and first grade children and that by their use one can obtain a fairly good classification of children of these two grades. E. MULHALL ACHILLES (Columbia) 867. LAIRD, D. A., Paper and Pencil Research in College Classrooms. J. of Applied Psychol., 1921, 5, 478-481. The thesis is that much of the college and normal school students' time in the classroom is exploited by their teachers in paper and pencil research with but meager, if any returns to the student himself. E. MULHALL ACHILLES (Columbia) 868. GARTH, T. R., The Results of Some Tests on Full and Mixed Blood Indians. J. of Applied Psychol., 1921, 5, 359-372. The problem was to find out how mixed and full blood Indians differ in the results of their performance of nine psychological tests. The subjects were 198 males, 77 being mixed blood and 121 full blood Indians, and 186 females, 78 being mixed and 108 full bloods. The ages ranged from 9 to 26, and the educational attainment fourth to tenth grade. The norms are of necessity only tentative until larger groups are obtained. From the data the comparison of the average performance of each group of mixed and full blood individuals for each test shows that the mixed blood excells the full blood in most of the cases. The scores of the mixed blood is favored by superior social status and educational opportunity. Tables giving average, average deviation, probable error and range are included. E. MULHALL ACHILLES (Columbia) 12. ΜΕΝΤTAL EVOLUTION. 869. ALVERDES, F., Studien an Infusorien über Flimmerbewegung, Lokomotion und Reizbeantwortung. Schaxel's Arbeiten aus dem Gebiete der experimentellen Biologie. Berlin, 1922. 1-130. Die Loeb'sche Tropismentheorie wird gänzlich abgelehnt; die Jennings'sche "Versuchs-und Irrtumsmethode" bildet ein viel zu enges Schema. Denn die Infusorien reagieren nicht in stereotyper Weise nach Art kleiner Automaten oder eines " isolierten Muskels" auf die Reize der Umwelt. Vielmehr steht ihnen eine ähnliche Fülle von Antwortmöglichkeiten zur Verfügung wie den höheren Tieren auch. F. ALVERDES (Halle a. S.) |