The Retention of Certain Secondary-School Subject Matter Over the Period of the Summer Vacation

Citation preview

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

F e b ru a ry 1 s t

19^0

This dissertation prepared under my direction by

....... Sister Barbara Geoghegan, S»C«.....................

entitled M 3...M Tm M QKM ...CBm im ..sm Q m M YrSm Q 0L..sm .W .T..M A.TTER

Q m K.M R.m m m .,m ..iEE..3m m R..ikG ATioM .

.............................

has been accepted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

/

( f a c u lt y A d v is e r)

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r THE RETENTION OF CERTAIN SECONDARY-SCHOOL SUBJECT MATTER OVER THE PERIOD OF THE SUMMER VACATION

By SISTER BARBARA GEOGHEGAN, S .C . B.A., College of Mount St. Joseph, 1925 M.A., Loyola University, 1939

DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE GRADUATE DEPARTMENT OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION OF FORDHAM UNIVERSITY’ New York 1950

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ProQuest N um ber: 10993268

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE LIST OF TABLES

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

iv

CHAPTER I,

introduction;

. . . ........................ . .

i

The p r o b l e m ................... . . . . . . . .

1

Definition of t e r m s ...................... .

4

Significance of the problem

9

. ..............

Limitations of the investigationII..

REVIEW OF RELATED INVESTIGATIONS

..••••

10

.........

12

Studies

in the retention of mathematics

Studies

in the retention of science

Studies

in the retention of languages. . .

44

Studies

in the retention of history

53



.

• • •. •

.. ,

Studies in the retention ofpsychology . . .

IV,r 32

56

General studies in the retention of elementary-school subject matter ' III.

Summary

. . . .

THE SUBJECTS, MATERIALS, AND PROCEDURES The subjects

.. . . .

The materials

.

...

68 71

.....

73

. . . . . . . .

76

...........

Statistical procedures ANALYSIS OF RESULTS

62 •

The procedures

IV.

....

. . . . . . . . . .

.........

86 89 95

Retention of mathematics over the summer vacation period L

.......................

96 -J

iii rCHAPTER-

PAG-E? Retention. of science over the summer vacation period

...............

...

134

........ . • •

130

Retention of foreign languages over the summer vacation period

Retention of history over the summer vacation period

.................

201

Retention of religion over the summer vacation period

.................

208-

Retention of high-school subject matter over the summer vacation period V.. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

• . .

...

......................

S u m m a r y .......... . ............. C o n c l u s i o n s .......................... Summary of conclusions

246

....................

251 254

.............................

263

Appendix A

...............................

264

Appendix B

.......................

Appendix C

L

220 220

BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................... APPENDICES

216

280

.................

281

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LIST OF TABLES TABLE I.

PAGE Apportionment of Pupils by Schools to Various Subject-Matter Groups

II..

. . . . . . .

Retention of Elementary Algebra over the Summer Vacation Period: Total Scores

III.

77

. .

99

Retention of Elementary Algebra over the Sum­ mer Vacation Period: Computational Skills

102

IV.. Retention of Elementary Algebra over the Summer Vacation Period: -Interpretation of Formulas and Graphs V.

106

................

Retention of Elementary Algebra over the Summer Vacation Period: Problem-Solving

VI.

Retention of Intermediate Algebra over the Summer Vacation Period: Total Scores

VII.

..

113

Retention of Intermediate Algebra over the Summer Vacation Period: Computations

VIII.

109

116

..

Retention of Intermediate Algebra over the 118

Summer Vacation Period: Problem-Solving IX. . Retention of Plane Geometry over the Summer Vacation Period: Total Scores

• •

121

X.. Retention of Plane Geometry over the Summer Vacation Period: Geometric Facts and Principles XI.

.................

.

124

Retention of Plane Geometry over the Summer Vacation Period: Construction Problems and Logical Reasoning

...........

127 _j

PAGE1

rTABLE XII.

Comparative Retention of Elementary Algebra, Intermediate Algebra, and Plane G-eometry over the Summer Vacation Period

XIII.



.........

. .

..........

. ..........

.

139

.

142

Retention of Chemistry over the Summer Vacation P e r i o d ........... . . . . . .

XVI.

135

Retention-of Biology over the Summer Vacation Period

XV.

131

Retention of 'General Science over the Summer Vacation Period

XIV.

/

... • • . •

Comparative Retention of General Science, Biology, and Chemistry over the Summer Vacation Period



..................

. / 146

XVII. Retention of Elementary Latin over the Summer Vacation

Period: Translation

• .. •

152

.. • . .

15.4

. • • •. .

158

XVIII. Retention of Elementary Latin over the Summer Vacation Period: Vocabulary XIX.

Retention of Elementary Latin over the Summer Vacation

XX.

Period: Grammar

Retention of Elementary Latin over the Summer Vacation Period: Total Scores

XXI.

Retention of Second-Year Latin over the Summer Vacation Period:

XXII.

Translation.

. • .

164

• •• .

167

Retention of Second-Year Latin over the Summer Vacation

XXIII.

. . . 16O

Period: Vocabulary

Retention of Second-Year Latin over the Summer Vacation

Period: Grammar

. . . •. .

169 J

vi age '

Retention of Second-Year Latin over the Summer Vacation Period: Total Scores

171

Retention of First-Year Spanish over theSummer Vacation Period: Translation



174

• .

177

Retention of First-Year Spanish over the Summer Vacation Period: Vocabulary

Retention of First-Year Spanish over the Summer Vacation Period: G-rammar

• • .

179

Retention of First-Year Spanish over the Summer Vacation Period: Total Scores



181

Retention of First-Year French over the

183

Summer Va-cation Period: Translation Retention of First-Year French over the Summer Vacation Period: Vocabulary

•*•

184

Retention of First-Year French over the Summer Vacation Period: G-rammar • * . .

186

Retention of First-Year French over the 188

Summer Vacation Period: Total Scores Comparative Retention of Latin, Spanish, and French over the Summer Vacation Period: Translation

. . .

........

Comparative Retention of Latin, Spanish, and French over the Summer Vacation Period: Vocabulary

• . ............



190

vii rTABLE

PAGE*

XXXV... Comparative Retention, of Latin, Spanish. and French over the Summer Vacation Period: G-rammar XXXVI.

...................

Comparative Retention of Latin, Spanish and French over the Summer Vacation



202

........... .

204

Retention of American History over ther Summer Vacation Period

XXXIX,

193

Retention of World History over the Summer Vacation Period'..............

XXXVIII.

/

.........

Period: Total Scores XXXVII.

196

Comparative Retention of World History and American History over the Summer Vacation Period

XL.

.....

............

Retention of First-Year Religion over the Summer Vacation Period

XLI.



210

Retention of Second-Year Religion over the Summer Vacation Period

XL-II.

207

..........

212'

Comparative Retention of First and Second-Year Religion over the Summer Vacation Period

XLIII.

.................... 214

Retention of High-School Subject Matter over the Summer Vacation.Period

L

• • • •^

217

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION I.

THE PROBLEM

The learning process pervades the entire mental life of man-.

Concomitant to all learning, the sine qua non

making it possible for learning to take place, is retention or the persistence of learning.

Unless changes in beha­

vior, acquired skills, and knowledge possess some degree of permanence, further learning cannot occur. is basic to all learning.

Thus, retention

The memory processes have always

been of interest to the serious student of man; the laws of association are as old as organized philosophy.

Since the

establishment of the first psychological laboratories dur­ ing the last quarter of the nineteenth century, numerous experimental studies of the memorial functions have engaged the attention of Investigators.

Ebbinghaus, pioneer in the

experimental study of the higher mental activities, initiated a trend in research that has yielded a fund of data concern­ ing learning and retention.*

Laboratory experiments have

been conducted under varying conditions of time, materials, and subjects.

In some of these, the investigator himself

has served as the subject; In others, the subjects have

* See Chapter II, pp. 12-14, for a discussion of Ebbinghaus* work.

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been children, adolescents, or adults; in every case, their number has been small, limited by the exigencies of the laboratory situation.

At different times, the materials

of retention have included nonsense syllables, number series, poetry, or short prose passages.

Time intervals

usually have been short, ranging from a few seconds to sev­ eral hours or a few days.

Although the methods of

measurement have varied from study to study, the saving or relearning method has been most frequently employed in the p laboratory investigations of retention. Despite the importance of retention in any consider­ ation of the learning process, the transfer of the study of retention from the limited field of the psychological labo­ ratory to the wider area of school situations has been made very slowly.

A few comprehensive investigations of the

permanence of learning have been conducted at the elemen­ tary level.

On the secondary and college level, however,

the few studies reported in the literature have been con­ cerned with the retention of a single school subject or of one phase of a single subject by relatively small groups of pupils over varying time intervals.

The persistence of

knowledge acquired in the various fields of high-school subject matter over the summer vacation period is a matter which should be of interest and value to secondary-school teachers and administrators alike.

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2 See pp. 6-7

To measure the degree

3 r “i to which such knowledge is retained during the vacation in­ terval was the purpose of this study*

To this end,

standardized objective tests in fourteen different high-school subjects were administered to 2,234 pupils in the first, sec­ ond, and third years of high school in May, 1948, at the close of the school year 1947-48 after all instruction had been completed.

The identical tests were repeated in Sep­

tember, 1948, at the beginning of the fall session before further formal study was undertaken.

Differences between

the means of the pre-vacation and post-vacation tests con­ stituted the measures of retention of the school subjects which included elementary algebra, intermediate algebra, plane geometry, general science, biology, chemistry, first and second-year Latin, first-year Spanish, first-year French, world history, American history, and first and sec­ ond year religion. This investigation of the retention of certain secondary-school subjects by high-school pupils over the period of the summer vacation was concerned with the following problems:. 1.

What amount of knowledge as measured by stand­

ardized tests in selected high-school subjects persisted through the summer vacation period during which no formal study of those subjects occurred? 2.

Did those who possessed the greatest amount of

measured knowledge in June retain the most over the summer Vacation?

Did pupils tend to have in September the same

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relative rank on the tests used in this investigation which

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they had displayed in June? 3.

How did the

retention of the more intelligent

pupils compare with that of the less intelligent over the period of the summer vacation? 4*

How did the

retention of hoys during the summer

vacation interval compare with that of girls? 5*

How did the

retention of the interquartile group

compare with the retention of the total group of pupils in a given, subject?

Was the retention of the middle 50 per

cent of the pupils in a given distribution an index to the retention of the entire group? 6*

Were certain subjects retained better than others?

7.

Were certain types of knowledge retained better

than others? II.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Throughout this dissertation, certain terms have been employed which require accurate and precise definition. These include retention, recall, recognition, memory, for­ getting, the saving, recall, and recognition methods of measuring retention, high-school subjects, high-school pupils, and summer vacation period. Retention is that function of memory by which percepts, images, and ideas are preserved.

Memory is that

® William A. Kelly, Educational Psychology L(Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1M b ) , p. 89.

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'power of the mind by which past mental acts and states of

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consciousness are retained, recalled, and recognized as having been previously experienced.

4

Retention, recall, and

recognition constitute the three functions of memory.

The

term recall refers to the mental reproduction of a former experience; recognition, to the apprehension of a present experience as identical with a previous o n e R e c a l l

and

recognition are distinct f u n c t i o n s A l t h o u g h the two phe­ nomena frequently occur together, nevertheless it Is possible for the one to take place in the absence of the other.

This factor of disparate functions must be considered

in measuring the permanence of learning. The term retention refers to the permanence of learn­ ing, to any measurable degree of persistence occurring in materials that have been learned.

By contrast, the term

forgetting is applied to any failure of these materials to persist through time.*7

Although retention is pervasive of

all learning, it is customary to differentiate between the two processes, using the term learning to denote the acqui­ sition of knowledge, skills, or changes in behavior, and retention to indicate the measured persistence of these 4 Kelly, l o c . c i t . 5 Celestine N. Bi tt1e , The Whole Man (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1945), pp. 204-2D8. ® Thomas V. Moore, Cognitive Psychology (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1939), pp. 446-55. 7 Robert E. Brennan, General Psychology (New York: Macmillan Company, 1937), p. 251.

^

changes after the cessation of practice* Retention and forgetting pervade learning, and a curve of learning is a cumulative retention curve which represents an increasing residue of the measured changes in behavior remaining after forgetting has been subtracted. But by experimental custom and convenience, increments of performance during practice up to an arbi­ trarily chosen criterion of time or performance are called learning, while measures of performance at some time after this criterion has"Eeen reached are called measures of retention. The measures of learning are plotted as functionsof the time spent in practice, and the measures of retention as functions of the time since practice ceased.® The methods by which retention is measured require some consideration in any study of the permanence of learn­ ing.

Laboratory studies in the field ordinarily employ the

saving, or relearning method, in which the subject is re­ quired to commit to memory the given material to a certain criterion, frequently to the point of one perfect reproduc­ tion.

The time required, or the number of repetitions of

the material necessary to reach the criterion, is carefully noted.

After the lapse of a definite time interval, the

material is relearned.

The time or the number of repeti­

tions needed to attain the original achievement is expressed in terms of percentage of the original learning conditions, that is, in the percentage of time or repetitions saved in the relearning process.

It is evident that this method of

measurement is applicable only in controlled laboratory situations involving relatively few subjects.

The recall

method requires the subject to reproduce the original

® John A. McGeoch, Psychology of Human Learning ^Hew York: Longmans, Green, ana Company, Iy4k), p. s±4.

7 Material after a stipulated time interval, and expresses

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retention in terms of the amount of material correctly re­ produced or in the amount of learned material, which fails to appear in the reproduction*

The completion-type item of the

objective test measures retention by this method*

The rec­

ognition method presents to the subject material previously learned, together with other material, requiring him to identify that which was acquired in the original learning* The true-false and multiple-choice types of objective test items measure the recognition function.

In any study of

retention, the degree of retention is a function of the method by which the measurement is made, since the differ­ ent methods may give different results.

The majority of

experimental evidence indicates that the recognition method yields a higher degree of retention than does the recall.9 The saving method commonly gives relatively smaller amounts than do the others after short intervals, and relatively larger amounts after longer intervals Recall is the least adequate index of retention, for often . . . an Item that cannot be recalled at a given moment Is still retained, as Is proved by its being recalled later. Recall is a response which depends upon the conditions of the moment as well as upon the memory trace. An item which cannot be recalled can often be recognized* Recognition is better than recall as an index of retention. Relearning is also a better index than r e c a l l * H 9 Ibid., pp. 559-69. ^ Edwin G. Boring and others, Introductory Psychol­ ogy (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1939), p* 340. H Robert S. Woodworth, Experimental Psychology UNew York: Henry Holt and Company, 1938), pp. 50-51.

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High-school subjects, constituting the materials of

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retention in this investigation, included those branches of secondary-school courses of study in which participating pupils had received two semesters of Instruction terminat­ ing with the close of the school year 1947-48; that is, those subjects in which these pupils had received during the school year one Carnegie unit of credit*

These sub­

jects included elementary algebra, which was broken down into computational skills, ability to manipulate formulas and read graphs, and problem-solving ability; intermedi­ ate algebra, involving computational skills and ability in problem-solving; plane geometry, including knowledge of geometric facts and principles, and reasoning ability; general science; biology; chemistry; first and second-year Latin translation, vocabulary, and grammar; first-year Spanish translation, vocabulary, and grammar; first-year French translation, vocabulary, and grammar; world history; American history; first and second-year religion. High-school pupils participating in this study included students enrolled in the first, second, and third years of four Catholic central high schools taught by the Sisters of Charity, located in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Springfield, Ohio.

The total number of pupils constituting

the subjects of this investigation was 2,234. Summer vacation period refers to the interval between the termination of the school year 1947-48, and the begin-

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'ning of the school year 1948-49; that is, the period ex-

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tending from the last week of May, 1948, to the second week of September, 1948, a period of approximately three months. III.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROBLEM

The problem of the retention of high-school subject matter possesses implications of significance both to ad­ ministrators and to teachers.

There appears to be a rather

widespread assumption that the permanence of school learning is slight,

12

and that a large amount of forgetting

occurs over a period of a few months.13

In a school sub­

scribing to this idea, there will be large expenditures of time and energy at the beginning of the fall term In re­ views of the last term1s work.

If the assumption be false,

such review Is unnecessary, wasteful, and uneconomical•

On

the other hand, a school may operate on the assumption that summer-time forgetting is slight, and undertake new work #

immediately upon the opening of the fall session.

If for­

getting has occurred to any considerable degree, this new learning will be acquired with difficulty, and will be in­ complete, Inefficient, and as wasteful and uneconomical as in the first case.

Thus, the question of summer-time

^ James L. Mursell, Psychology of Secondary-School Teaching (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1959), pp. 250-1. 15 Sidney L. Pressey and Francis P. Robinson, Psychology and the New Education (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1944), p / 566.

10 detention of materials acquired In school is of interest from the viewpoint of the administrator. Faulty ideas of retention can impair the efficiency of a teacher.

Pessimism arising from an exaggerated pic­

ture of the forgetting of school learning can deter her from putting forth her "best efforts in the classroom.

It

can also contribute to the poor work of the indifferent teacher by furnishing a basis for rationalizing the faulty methods and unsatisfactory results of her teaching activ­ ities • Data concerning the amount of retention of high-school subject matter should be of practical use in indicating the types of measured knowledge most readily retained, and those most easily forgotten.

Such data

might be suggestive of desirable changes in teaching methods and course content. IV.

LIMITATIONS OF THE INVESTIGATION

This investigation was limited in area and subjects, in the materials of retention, and in the method of measur­ ing retention. With respect to area and subjects, the study was confined to the retention of materials learned at the secon dary-school level by the 2,254 pupils in the first, second, and third years of the Catholic central schools cooperating in the investigation.

In materials of retention, it was

limited in that the measured knowledge of these pupils L

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constituted the materials, as indicated by mean differences

between pre-vacation and post-vacation scores achieved on the Cooperative Tests In elementary algebra, intermediate algebra, plane geometry, general science, biology, chemistry, first and second-year Latin, first-year Spanish, first-year French, world history, American history; and by the Cleveland diocesan tests In first and second-year religion. Knowledges and outcomes not measured by these instruments were beyond the scope of the present study. This Investigation was also limited as to the method of measuring retention.

The data, obtained In the study were

expressed in terms of recognition scores except in the case of first and second-year religion, in which the tests in­ cluded recall and recognition items. Accordingly, since this study was necessarily lim­ ited as to subjects, materials of retention, methods of measurement, and subject-matter areas in which retention was studied, it makes no claim to have answered defini­ tively the question of retention of high-school learning over the summer-vacation period.

It does claim, however,

that the results have been based on an experiment which has been sufficiently controlled to permit conclusions to be drawn concerning the retention of those pupils who consti­ tuted the subjects of this investigation In those branches of high-school subject matter which were included in the study. L

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OP RELATED INVESTIGATIONS The nature of the memory processes has been a matter of Interest to psychologists from the time that the first psychological laboratories were established during the last quarter of the nineteenth century*

Among the earliest

of these investigators was Ebbinghaus, whose careful studies constituted the first of numerous experiments in the field of retention, and the first laboratory investigation into the higher mental processes.^Ebbinghaus * work is of interest not only because of its historical significance and because of the careful con­ ditions under which his experiments were planned and executed, but also because of the well-known and frequently misunderstood 1retention curve* which was one of the re­ sults of his investigation*

He committed to memory to a

criterion of one perfect reproduction a series of lists of nonsense syllables, each list numbering sixteen syllables. The time required to learn the material to that criterion was carefully noted.

After varying time intervals the lists

were relearned, some with syllables rearranged, some in the

^ H. Ebbinghaus, Memory. Translated by Henry A* Rugger and Clara E. Bussenius (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913), 206 pp.

original order*

The amounts of time necessary for the re­

learning were found to be less than the original learning periods* and were expressed in terms of per cent of the initial learning times.

Ebbinghaus measured a saving of

58.2 per cent after nineteen minutes, of 55.3 per cent after twenty-four hours, and of 21.1 per cent after thirty-nine days.

When these data were represented graphically, there

was apparent In the resulting curve a sharp initial decline followed by a gradual levelling off as the time interval increased. Although Ebbinghaus conducted other experiments in memory under varying conditions, it is to the investigation here reported that references are frequently found in works dealing with retention and the learning process.

Very often

the curve has been misunderstood and misrepresented.

The

Ebbinghaus curve represents the temporal course of retention of nonsense syllables when measured by the saving or relearn­ ing method.

It does not, as sometimes stated, indicate that

65 per cent of learned material is forgotten in twenty-four hours when measured by other methods.

Stroud has pointed

out that wthe Ebbinghaus phenomenon is to the effect that the rate of forgetting is negatively accelerated, not that a given amount is forgotten within a certain period .n^

^ j. b . Stroud, Experiments on Learning in School Situations,” Psychological Bulletin, 37:777-807, December, 1940.

14 McGeoch has emphasized the need for care in inter­ preting the data of retention experiments, and has called attention to the danger of making general applications of curves which are the resultants of particular sets of con­ ditions. The retention curve which can be plotted from his (Ebbinghaus*} data has long since become the bestknown result of his work and is often styled *the curve of retention.* Retention curves are the functions of their conditions, and there' is none that can be called ’the1 curve, save for a set of specified condi­ tions. The Ebbinghaus curve needs no gratuitous ascription of universality to insure its rank as one of the great achievements of experimental psychology. By the work which it represents, the superficially fleeting and unstable phenomena of memorial functions were reduced to quantitative order, and the way was opened for the experimental attack on retention.5 . . . there is no one curve that can be called the curve of retention. . . . An equation which will fit whenever the same conditions prevail holds all the generality science can hope to attain.4 Subsequent laboratory investigations of retention, in which nonsense syllables were used and the saving or re­ learning method of measurement was employed showed some deceleration, but not to the same degree as obtained by Ebbinghaus•

Where retention of meaningful material has

been studied by the saving method under laboratory condi­ tions, the decline in the curve has been less steep.

The

slope of the curve has been found to vary when measured by

® John A. McGeoch, Psychology of Human Learning (New Yorks Longmans, Green, and-Company, 1942), p. &L7. 4 Ibid., p. 540.

15 rthe methods of recognition or of recall.5

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Retention is therefore a function not only of time, but of materials and method of measurement as well.

Hence,

any consideration of retention studies must take into account the type of materials learned and the method by which reten­ tion was measured. Psychological laboratories have yielded a large num­ ber of investigations in retention since the time of Ebbinghaus•

Since the present study is concerned with the

permanence of learning in classroom situations, however, the literature was surveyed for data derived under school conditions.

Although the question of retention is of vital

importance in any consideration of the learning process, an examination of the literature gives evidence that studies in retention have not been extended very widely to classroom situations.

A few investigations involving one or more

subject-matter fields have been made in the elementary school.

At the secondary and college level, those studies

which have been reported have been concerned with the reten­ tion of a single subject, or of one phase of a subject, such as Latin vocabulary or Latin grammar.

In some of the inves­

tigations, the summer vacation period constituted the time interval between the initial test of learning and the re­ tention test; in others, the time intervals' varied in length from a few weeks to several years.

In some studies, there

® For a discussion of the methods of measuring >retention, see Chapter I, pp. 6-7.

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was displayed a elose adherence to the conditions necessary for the scientific study of retention; in others, there was evident a failure to meet one or more of the conditions.

Requisites for the study of retention include an ini­ tial measurement of acquisition; a time interval during which there occurs no formal study or review; and a remea­ surement to determine the amount of retention during the intervenient period.

These conditions for the adequate and

proper study of retention, recommended by authorities in the field, offer criteria for the evaluation of studies that have been made in the permanence of learning.

These

studies will be reviewed according to the subject-matter areas in which they were undertaken in the senior and junior high-school fields and at the college level.

Several in­

clusive investigations of the retention of elementary-school subjects will be summarized, since they resemble the present problem in that they involve a wide range of subjects.

No

laboratory experiments in memory will be included, since such studies are beyond the scope of the present problem. This chapter has been divided into sections on the

® Robert A. Davis, wThe Learning Process: Acquisi­ tion and Retention,11 Educational Psychology (Charles E. Skinner, editor; New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1946), p. 182. 17 James B. Stroud, Psychology of Education (New York: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1946), pp. 501-2. See also McGeoch, op. clt ♦, pp. 4-5.

17 "basis of the subject-matter areas in which retention was studied.

n

In the first section are presented the related

studies in the retention of mathematics.

In the second,

the related studies concerned with the retention of science at the high-school and college levels are summarized.

The

third section deals with investigations in the retention of languages.

The fourth section presents studies in the re­

tention of history, and the fifth reviews investigations in the retention of psychology, several of which have been made at the college level.

Studies in the retention of

learning at the elementary-school level are presented in the sixth section. I.

STUDIES IN THE RETENTION OP MATHEMATICS

An. investigation into the retention of first-year algebra over a one-year period during which none of the participating pupils received any further instruction in algebra, but during which all studied plane geometry, was conducted by Sister Florence Louise Lahey.8

She was also

interested in determining the relationship between intelli­ gence and the retention of algebra, and in the differences between the retention of algebraic skills by boys and by girls.

The 229 algebra pupils included In this survey had

received special training in problem-solving during their

® Sister M. Florence Louise Lahey, "Permanence of Retention of First-Year Algebra," Journal of Educational Psychology, 32:401-13, September, 1941• L



18 r ninth-grade course.

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In May, 1938, at the end of the school year, algebra tests were given to these 229 subjects.

The tests, based

on a study of representative textbooks and such standard­ ized tests as were applicable, had been devised as part of the problem-solving program in which these pupils had parQ ticipated. They consisted of fifty computational problems covering subject matter generally taught in the ninth grade through quadratics, and thirty problems measuring problem­ solving ability.

The measure of intelligence was the

Exercises in Cognitive Ability, Form A, developed by Sister Maurice McManama.10

The algebra tests were repeated in

September, 1938, after the summer vacation period, and again in January and May, 1939.

Thus,*the same tests were

administered four times within a year.

Means were calcu­

lated for the separate testings, and the differences between the means obtained at the various time intervals were taken as indices of retention. For the period of the summer vacation, the investiga­ tor found a loss of 9.3 per cent in fundamental operations, and a gain of 2.2 per cent in problem-solving ability.

9 W. E. Kellar, HThe Relative Contribution of Certain Factors to Individual Differences In Algebraic ProblemSolving Ability,B Journal of Experimental Education, 8:46-55, January, TW5EZ -*-0 Sister Maurice McManama, A Genetic Study of the Cognitive General Factor in Human Intelligence (stuclTes in Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. '4, No. 2. Washington: Catholic University of America, 1936), 35 pp.

19 F Prom September to January there was an additional 10 per

"1

cent loss in fundamental operations, and a further increase of 1.3 per cent in ability to solve problems.

During the

last four months of the experiment, from January until May, these pupils retained their January standing in fundamental skills and gained an additional 4.8 per cent in problem­ solving ability.

That is, in the course of one year these

229 ninth-grade boys and girls lost 20 per cent of.their skill in algebraic fundamentals and gained 10 per cent in their ability to solve problems, as measured by the partic­ ular tests employed.

The investigator concluded that there

is a high degree of retention of algebraic computational skills over a period of one year, and an improvement in problem-solving ability.

The latter she attributed to sev­

eral factors: to maturation; to transfer from problem situations in plane geometry to problem-solving in algebra; to the practice effect afforded by daily exercises in geome­ try; to the type of test used; and to the fact that the pupils participating in the study had received special training in problem solving during their course in firstyear algebra. Coefficients of correlation between intelligence and algebraic abilities as measured by the initial tests were found to be .23*.043 for fundamental operations and .49*.034 for problem-solving ability.

After the summer vacation,

these coefficients were found to b© .20*.042 and .49^.034 Respectively.

As the time intervals lengthened throughout

20 r~

the course of the investigation, there was a tendency for

the coefficients of correlation to decrease*

—i

In general,

the correlation between intelligence and retention scores was positive but low*

There appeared to be a significant

relationship between intelligence and retention of prob­ lem-solving ability*

Sex differences in algebraic ability

and in retention of that ability appeared to be negligible* In considering the methods employed in this study, It would seem that the repetition of the same tests at four-month intervals over the one-year period tended to give results which could be attributed, in part at least, to practice effect*

Again, after the September testing

the pupils were engaged in the study of geometry, which demands problem-solving ability of the same sort, or very similar to the operations employed In algebra.

In addition,

the tasks Included in the second semester of the plane geom­ etry course required the exercise of simple computational algebraic skills*

Hence, It would seem that the part of

this investigation subsequent to the September testing con­ stituted a study in transfer, rather than in the retention of algebraic skills* Wo r c e s t e r ^ reported a study in the retention of algebra in which twenty-two pupils were given different forms of the Douglas Algebra Test at varying time intervals*

^ D* A* Worcester, "The Permanence of Learning In High School Subjects — Algebra,," Journal of Educational Psychology, 19:343-45, May, 1928*

_j

21 'Form A-I was administered in February; Form A - 11, its equiv­ alent, in March; Form B-II, involving more advanced skills, was given three months after the first examination. three tests were repeated the following December.

All Sixteen

of the twenty-two pupils were found to have achieved scores in the successive tests equal to, or better than, their orig­ inal scores.

This fact Worcester attributed to either of

two eausesj practice effect, or the use of already-learned processes in acquiring new skills.

He concluded that there

is a high degree of retention in algebra. This investigator failed to differentiate between retention as measured by recall test items and retention as measured by recognition items, both of which are included in the Douglas Algebra Tests. TO

Considerable evidence has 15

been advanced by Luh, Myers, -and other investigators \ that there are appreciable differences between these two measures under most conditions of measurement, and that recognition tests yield higher retention scores than do recall tests except in the case of very short time inter­ vals of less than a few hours

C. W. buh, The Conditions of Retention (Psycho­ logical Monographs, V o l . 31, No. 5, wKole No. 142. Princeton: Psychological Review Company, 1925), 45 pp. l^ G. C. Myers, A Study in Incidental Memory (Archives of Psychol ogy*7 Vol . 4, N o . 26 • Few York: Columbia University, 1913), 108 pp. ^ Anne Anastasi, Further Studies on the Memory Factor (Archives of Psychology, Vol. £&, N o • 142• New York: Columbia University, August, 1932), 60 pp. L

-J

22 r

Worcester failed to state whether instruction had

“i

ceased prior to the time of the last testing, or whether %

the formal study of algebra was continuing during the test­ ing period.

It is, therefore, difficult to ascertain

whether there was a time interval between the cessation of class work in algebra and the retention test, but it would seem that this condition, a requisite for the proper study of retention, was not observed*

Under these circumstances,

the investigation would seem to constitute a study in the cumulative acquisition of algebraic skills, rather than in the retention of algebraic knowledge already acquired. An investigation to determine the retention of algebra over a one-year period during which the subjects received no instruction whatever in mathematics was con15

ducted by Layton. ^

In May, one month before the close of

the school year, the New York Regents Examination in Alge­ bra of the preceding summer, August, 1928, was administered to fifty-one ninth-grade pupils•

As measured by the Otis

Group Tests of Intelligence, the intelligence quotients of these pupils ranged from 90 to 128, with a median of 114. After the test was given in May, the group received one month of intensive review and drill, after which the test was repeated*

Three days later the final Regents examina­

tion was administered, after which the group received no 15 Edna Thompson Layton, ”The Permanence of Learning in Elementary Algebra,” Journal of Educational Psychology, 23:46-55, January, 1932* L

' '

-J

further formal instruction in algebra* the initial test was repeated*

Eleven months later"1

During the intervening

period the subjects had received no instruction in mathe­ matics, and there was no review before testing.

Differ­

ences between the means of the original examinations and the means of the tests given at one-month and one-year intervals constituted the measures of retention*

Coeffi­

cients of correlation were obtained between intelligence quotients and initial algebra scores* The mean score on the initial test was 71.3; on the second test, after one month of Intensive review, the mean was 87*1; one year after the initial test, the mean of the group amounted to 56.2.

The mean difference of 15*1 between

the tests given at the one-year interval represented a loss of 15.5 per cent for the twelve-month period during which these pupils received no formal training in mathematics. Layton found that pupils retained best their knowledge of .factoring, substitution, ability to find an average, ability in number problems involving integers, problems involving fractions, and skill in the construction of graphs.

They

did not tend to retain knowledge involving the manipulation of fractions and fractional equations, the ability to solve quadratic equations and to extract square root, to solve simultaneous equations, and to solve problems involving measurement*

It was found that the intensive review of one

month at the end of the course, prior to the final examina­ tion, had little effect upon the retention of ninth-grade

_j

24 ‘algebra•

The coefficient of correlation between intelli-

n

gence quotients and initial test scores was .293 - .087. There was some evidence that the ranking of pupils accord­ ing to intelligence quotients and the rank according to algebra retention tended to be similar.

There was evidence, i but to a slight degree, that rank by intelligence quotients more closely resembled that for verbal problems than it did rank for manipulative techniques. The losses in Layton’s study represented a combina­ tion of recognition and recall scores.

The percentage of

loss was higher than that obtained by Sister Florence Louise over an equal period of time .1^

The difference

between the results of the studies serves to emphasize the fact that the latter investigation measured the retention of algebra over a one-year period during which the pupils pursued further learning of mathematics and during which they were exercising skills acquired in algebra while study­ ing geometry.

Layton’s subjects, on the other hand,

displayed a higher degree of loss, but were not studying mathematics during the intervenient period.

It is probable

that the different measuring instruments used likewise con­ tributed to some of the differences between the results of the two studies. Challman*^ conducted an investigation to determine 16 Sister Florence Louise Lahey, o p . cit. 1^ Mildred D. Ohallman, ”The Retention of Arithmetic and Algebra in Relation to Achievement in Plane Geometry,” tThe Mathematics Teacher, 39:77-9, February, 1946. -J

25 r

n

how much, and what parts of arithmetic and algebra were re­ called by high-school pupils at the beginning and end of their study of plane geometry*

Tests given to 107 pupils

consisted of a Navy arithmetic test that had been given to 5,250 navy recruits in 1940 and that included twenty ex­ amples in the fundamental operations of arithmetic; and twenty simple problems in fundamental algebraic skills, equations, and radicals*

The tests were administered in

September at the outset of the course in plane geometry, and again late in May at the end of the course*

The mean

score on the September arithmetic test was 14.9; on the subsequent May test, 16.6.

The mean gain of 2.2 in arith­

metic represented an increase of 14*7 per cent*

In the

algebra test, the September mean was 9*1; the May mean, 14.7; the average increase in terms of per cent, 38*1. Some of the pupils showed improvement in the ability to solve verbal problems and to extract square root; all showed improvement in manipulating operations which in­ volved radicals* Two factors in the conditions under which this Investigation was conducted should be considered In exam­ ining the results; the tests used, and the conditions of measurement.

The algebra test Included twenty simple items

in algebraic fundamentals, a number of items probably too small for an adequate sampling of skills In algebra; the validity of such a test is therefore questionable.

The

Lfact that measurements were made at the beginning and end

_j.

26 r*

of the school year during which the pupils were studying

~ 1

geometry violated the condition which requires an intervenient period of no practice or instruction.

This study

would seem to be an investigation into the transfer effects of a course in plane geometry on arithmetic and algebraic skills, rather than a study in the retention of such skills. White,

18

in a study of the retention of elementary

algebra after varying intervals of time, sought to ascer­ tain the effect on retention of such factors as chronological age, intelligence, subject preference or interest, and sex.

She also wished to determine the extent

to which specific skills were retained, and which skills were most frequently forgotten.

For this purpose two dif-

*

ferent tests were used.

Test I, devised by the

investigator, aimed to measure complete mastery of elemen­ tary algebraic skills, and consisted of six examples which had been analyzed into sixty-four steps.

Reliability was

determined by administering the test to fifty pupils on two successive days.

The coefficient of correlation be­

tween the two trials was

.914; when obtained by the split-

halves method, the reliability coefficient was found to be .852.

Mean differences between the two trials showed a

gain due to practice effect of 8.5 per cent.

The second

test, constructed by the heads of the mathematics

Annabel Lee White, The Retention of Elementary Algebra through Quadratics, af ter~arying~Intervals of Time (Washington: Judd and Detweiler, 1932), 6? pp.

27

~i

r departments of the Baltimore senior high schools, was diagnostic in nature, and consisted o^ analyzed into 109 steps. cessive days showed a

Trial^

on two suc­

coefty''

ability of .958 ;

by the split-halves ^net

^lii^ity coefficient was

found to be . 9 1 8 ^ /

^ ^ / o n the two trials due to

practice effec' quotient^/ Oti^x^

V s e v e n examples

per cent.

Intelligence

g a t i n g pupils were measured by the Tests of Mental Ability, Higher Interest was calculated on a percen­

tile

>y having the pupils list the subjects they were

studying in order of preference.

Effort scores were ob­

tained from ratings by teachers of plane geometry. Purpose was gaged by the expressed intention of the pupils to continue or to discontinue the study of algebra. Test I was administered to 139 pupils at the end of their ninth-grade course in algebra in June, 1926, and was repeated the following September.

It was given again in

March, 1927, and in September, 1927.

As measured by this

Instrument, the loss in algebraic ability during the sum­ mer vacation was 59 per cent; for the nine-month interval from June to March and for the fifteen-month Interval from June, 1926, to September, 1927, the loss was 76.6 per cent. Certain factors associated with the results caused White to conclude that Test I was not a good measuring instrument for the retention of algebra.

Since there were some perfect

uand some zero scores, the test did not completely measure

_j

28 ^ h e group*

There were more recall than recognition items;

n

the test was therefore more difficult to solve after a lapse of time*

Again, the six examples comprising the test in­

volved many consecutive steps, each dependent upon the preceding one, so that one error precipitated more than one subsequent mistake in a single problem* For these reasons, the experiment was undertaken anew in June, 1927, with a different group of pupils, em­ ploying Test II*

The test was repeated In November, after

the 187 subjects had begun the study of geometry, and was given again at eight and sixteen-month intervals after the initial testing*

The loss in algebraic skills for this

second group was 32*8 per cent for the first five months; 31*5 per cent after eight months; and 30.1 per cent after sixteen months#

The differences in losses for this group

and for the pupils who took Test I were attributed to the different measuring Instruments.

White found Test II to

be more adequate as a measure of the group, since there were no perfect scores and only one zero score.

Since this

test was composed of many examples of a few steps each, It was possible for pupils to achieve better scores. White found a negative correlation between chrono­ logical age and degree of retention#

There was a positive,

but low, correlation between intelligence and retention. Those who expressed the intention to continue the study of algebra and who did so were more interested and exerted ^ore effort than those who were planning to discontinue the

29 r

subject#

There was no apparent difference between the re­

tention of boys and of girls.

”i

Pupils remembered best the

ability to translate English statements into algebraic equations, and the fundamental principles and proeesses_th&t had been overlearned by constant practice and application. They forgot very quickly the work in radicals and surds, the solution of quadratics by the method of completing the squares, irrational equations, and simultaneous equations involving quadratics•

White concluded that the shorter the

interval between the end of the algebra course and the first recall, the greater the retention#

The factors of purpose,

interest, and effort were the most potent in determining retention of algebraic skills* Davis and Rood‘S

made a study of retention and loss

of arithmetical abilities in the junior high school to determine the extent to which pupils retained certain basic skills while studying increasingly complex materials and thus acquiring new related knowledge.

Fifty-six pupils

studying arithmetic in the seventh and eighth grades consti­ tuted the subjects of this study#

In the first semester of

the seventh grade these pupils engaged in a review of the fundamentals, including fractions, decimals, and whole num­ bers ; percentages were introduced toward the end of the semester#

During the second semester, percentages and their

Robert A • Davis and Edward J. Rood, "Remembering and Forgetting Arithmetical Abilities," Journal of Educa­ tional Psychology, 38:216-22, April, 194*71

_j

30 Applications were studied.

In the eighth grade, percent-

n

ages were reviewed, and problems employing work with, and applications of, percentage were used throughout the year. During the two years, there were tests, ten to twenty minutes in length, which constituted reviews of addition, subtrac­ tion, multiplication, and division of integers.

For these

reviews, the Schorling, Clark, and Potter Arithmetic Tests were used alternately five times: in September, 1940; January, 1941; June, 1941; January, 1942; and May, 1942. Thus, the Intervenient period during which no formal study or practice should occur was lacking in this investigation. Davis and Eood concluded from the results of the tests that, although the pupils demonstrated Increased power with each test period, it could not be assumed that the abilities would remain at the same height of efficiency even during a comparatively short period of four months.

There was, there­

fore, a high degree of forgetting of fundamental arithmetic skills.

Need and use, it was found, were important factors

in keeping learning alive. T h o r n d i k e ^ administered a test consisting of five algebra problems to 189 college graduates who were in the first year of law school.

The problems demanded the use of

fundamental algebraic skills.

The median score attained by

this group of graduates was 3.0.

Their scores were com-

20 Edward L. Thorndike, "The Permanence of School Learning ,n School and Society, 15:625-27, June 10, 1922. L -

-J

31 r pared with achievement

in the algebra section of the '

Thorndike Intelligence

Examination by the upper half of a

group of entering college freshmen, on the assumption that the freshman algebra scores would be representative of the ' shores that would have

been made by the graduates at the

time of their entrance

into college.

On this basis,

Thorndike concluded that over a long period of time there was a 60 per cent retention of algebraic ability acquired in the ordinary high-school course in algebra.

The shortness

of the test used, the lack of definite information as to initial ability of the subjects, and the absence of a defi­ nite time interval between previous instruction in a,lgebra and the final testing make this study of little value in a consideration of the retention of mathematical skills. Summary of studies in the retention of mathematics. The studies reported in this review of the retention of mathematics have been made under varying conditions.

In

some, there has been a careful conformity to the requi­ sites for the scientific study of retention, namely: an initial measurement of knowledges or skills acquired, the lapse of a definite time interval during which no formal instruction or study occurs, and a remeasurement at the end of that period.

In other investigations, one or more of

these conditions have not been observed.

Borne investiga­

tors have used standardized tests as measuring instruments, others have constructed special tests to suit their purl

_i

Eposes.

Recognition and recall scores seem to have been

combined indiscriminately in these studies.

^

Although the

reported findings vary considerably from one investigation to another, two results were frequently apparent:

in gen­

eral, there have been found losses in computational skills in algebra and, to a lesser extent, in arithmetic.

In al­

most every case, there have been gains in problem-solving ability between the time of the initial tests and' the retention measurements# II.

STUDIES IN THE RETENTION OF SCIENCE

The retention of science has been the subject of investigation at the junior high-school, senior high-school, and college levels in the fields of general science, chem­ istry, botany, and zoology with divergent results. Retention of general science. Word and Davis

pi

investigated the acquisition and retention of factual information in general science at the junior high-school level.

The subjects of the study were ninety-six seventh-

grade pupils attending- the public schools of Greeley, Colorado.

The one-semester course, based entirely on the

textbook content and classroom teaching, was divided into nine approximately equivalent two-week units, so arranged

2 1 Aubrey H. Word and Robert A. Davis, ’'Acquisition and Retention of Factual Information in Seventh-G-rade General Science During a Semester of Eighteen Weeks,” Journal of Educational Psychology. 30:116-25, February, l 1939.

-1

35 rthat no formal review of a unit was conducted once the two-week period1s work was completed.

Two equivalent ob­

jective examinations were constructed, covering the work of the entire course,' each consisting of 315 multiple-choice and completion items. Form A of this examination was used to measure acquisition; Form B, to measure retention.

Both

forms were divided into nine sections, each consisting of thirty-five items applicable to the work of a given unit. Upon the completion of Unit I within a two-week period, the part of Test A covering that unit was adminis­ tered, and the new unit commenced immediately*

Two weeks

later, upon the conclusion of Unit II, the section of Test A concerned with the second unit was administered, together with Form B of the test covering the work of Unit I.

With­

out any further reference to the material thus far learned, instruction- in the third unit was begun.

At the completion

of this unit, tests were administered in Unit III for the first time, in Unit II for the second time.

‘This procedure

was followed for the entire semester, at the end of which the entire Test B was given.

In four of the units, gains

were reported in the two-week intervals; In one unit, there was neither gain nor loss; in the other four, there were slight losses.

When retention over four, six, eight,

twelve, and sixteen weeks was measured, there were reported gains ranging from 7 per cent to 32 per cent in four of the units; losses from 10 per cent to 18 per cent in three units.

The investigators concluded that there was a high

_j

54 r degree of retention of certain types of information, as acquired in a general science course.

n

They found that

level of initial mastery did not appear to affect the amount retained during the varying time intervals, and that the nature of the material seemed to be a conditioning fac­ tor in cumulative acquisition and retention. Two factors appeared in Word and Davis* study which would indicate that the investigation was not strictly one of retention: although there was no formal review of, or reference to, the material.of a unit once that unit was completed, nevertheless the subject matter under study dur­ ing the delay periods was similar to, and related to, the content of the preceding units; second, it is probable that the retention tests served' as review periods, thus further interfering with the requisite condition of an intervenient period of no formal study or practice.

The

investigators suggested that some of the improvement was likely due to integration and interdependence of subject matter in progressing from unit to unit, Brooks pp reported a study by Joseph in which junior high-school pupils were found to have forgotten, in a threemonth interval, 7 per cent of the general science they had known at-the end of the quarter in which they had studied the subject.

At the end of six months, the amount of for­

getting had increased to 12 per cent. pp Fowler D. Brooks, Psychology of Adolescence L (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1929), p. 270.

^

35 r*

Studies in the retention of chemistry.

In an

-

investigation into the retention of high-school chemistry, Powers2^ administered a test to 359 students at the Uni­ versity of Minnesotajin September of their freshman year. Of this group, 142 had completed the study of high-school chemistry the preceding June; for other students in the group, the time interval between the completion of highschool chemistry and the date of testing ranged from fifteen months to five years or more.

The test, whieh was

made up of both recall and recognition items, involved such abilities as the writing of formulas and equations, the classifying of elements, mixtures, and compounds, and other information ordinarily acquired in the usual highschool chemistry course* The same test had previously been administered to 1,200 high-school students at the termination of their course in chemistry.

The performance of these pupils, with

a median score of 88, served as the basis of comparison with the achievement of the college group, and the differ­ ences- between medians were taken as the measures of retention.

For the 142 college students who had completed

the high-school course three months -previously, the median score on the September test was 81.0; for the ninety-eight

2'^3 S. R. Powers, How Long Do Students Retain What They Have Learned from High School Qhem is try ? (New York Society for the Study of Education Gontributions to Education, Vol. 1. New York: World Book Company, 1924), Lpp. 342-50.

36 who took the test fifteen months after the end of their high-school chemistry, the median was 76; two years and three months after the termination of their high-school work in chemistry, a group of forty students achieved a median score of 76,

For twenty-seven students who had not

studied chemistry for five years or more, the median was 69.

In terms of percentage, the high-school pupils who

were tested immediately after the termination of their course answered correctly 63 per cent of the items.

The

college students who had finished the course three months previously answered 56 per cent of the items correctly; those for whom there was a fifteen-month lapse of time, 40 per cent.

Powers concluded that specific information

acquired in a high-school chemistry course was rapidly forgotten. It should be noted that none of the college students who constituted the subjects of this investigation were given an initial test prior to the time interval.

In

lieu or such data, the achievement of 1,200 high-school chemistry pupils was taken as the measure of initial ac­ quisition.

That is to say, the initial score represented

the achievement of one population; the retention score, the achievement of another population for which the inter­ vals between the termination of the high-school chemistry course and the retention test ranged from three months to five years.

It would seem that the assumption upon which

Lthe study was based, namely, that the achievenient of all

37 rhigh-school pupils at the end of a one-year course in chem- ' istry can he expressed by the mediam achievement of the sample of 1,200 pupils who took the Powers test, was hardly a valid one.

Consequently, that median achievement should not have

been attributed to the college students for comparison with their scores on the September retention test# Frutchley,"

in a study of retention of high-school

chemistry, gave a pretest at the outset of a one-year course to the juniors enrolled in chemistry classes in three Ohio schools.

At the termination of the course in May, 1935, the

test was repeated, constituting the final examination* of the course.

One year later, in May, 1936, the test was adminis­

tered again to measure the amount of retention over a one-year period during which no further instruction in chemistry occurred.

The test, constructed for use in the

investigation, was intended to measure five objectives of the high-school chemistry course: the ability to select chemical facts; the ability to apply chemical facts and principles; knowledge of chemical terms; knowledge of chemical symbols, formulas, and valence; ability to balance equations. nition and recall items were included in the- test.

°RecogThe

differences between the means of the initial test, final test, and retention test were computed.

The difference be­

tween the pretest and final test was taken as the measure of F . P. Frutchley, "Retention of High-School Chem­ istry,” Educational Research Bulletin. 16:34— 37, February, 1937. L

-J

38 r‘ gain made during the course; the difference "between the

-i

final test and the retention test given one year later was considered the measure of retention.

Frutchley found that

in the one-year interval "between the completion of the course and the retention test the subjects of his study remembered 84 per cent of the gains they had made during the course in chemistry.

The highest amount of retention,

92 per cent, was found in the ability to apply facts and principles; the lowest degree of retention, amounting to 66 per cent, occurred in chemical terminology.

From the

description of the test, the items concerned with the ap­ plication of facts and principles appeared to be recognition questions; those dealing with chemical terminology, recalltype questions.

Mo distinction between the two types of

memory was made by the investigator.

He attributed the

differences in retention to the inherent differences in the objectives of the course, and concluded that retention of chemistry is greatest in the more general types of beha­ vior, that is, in the application of facts and principles. When the retention of boys was compared with that of girls, it was found that boys lost, more than girls in the ability to balance equations; girls lost more in selecting facts a.nd in terminology; both displayed the same amount of re­ tention in the application of facts and principles. In a study of retention at the college level, G-reene^ 25 Edward B. G-reene, "The Retention of Information i_Learned in College Courses.fl-Journal of Educational Research. 24:262-73, November, 1931*

39 rrepeated in October the same examination that had been given at the close of the course, to a group of students in physiological chemistry.

The test included completion,

true-false, multiple-choice, and 3.abelling items; thus it tested both recognition and recall functions of memory.

On

the June examination, the average achieved by the group was 80 per cent; on the October test, 48 per cent.

In terms of

mean differences, the mean loss amounted to 32 per cent; in terms of percentage of original achievement, the loss was 40 per cent.

Since the course in physiological chemistry

demanded previous knowledge of chemistry, G-reene allowed for initial learning in computing the vacation loss, assum­ ing that this knowledge would have amounted to a range of five to ten points on the test.

Accordingly, he concluded

that these students lost approximately one-half of bhe information they had reported in their end-of-the-term examination over the period of the summer recess. Studies in the retention of zoology. G-reene

26

also

was interested in the retention of zoology by college stu­ dents, and conducted an experiment similar to the study in chemistry, using as subjects groups of students in the beginning course in zoology.

Objective tests were given at

the close of the course in May, at the beginning of the following session in early October, and again at eightmonth and twenty-month intervals after the initial test.

L.

26 rbia.. pp. 268-73..

40 ■j—

The test included completion, true-false, multiple-choice, and labelling items.

In the June test, the average for the

group was 76 per cent; in October, 42 per cent; the mean loss in scores, 34 per cent.

In terms of percentage of

original achievement, this group lost 35 per cent of the average score achieved before the summer interval.

When

retested eight months later, during which interval there *

was apparently no further study of zoology, there was re­ tained one-fourth of the measured knowledge of zoology; after twenty months, one-tenth to one-fifth was retained. G-reene concluded that these students lost over a period of tnree months about one-half of the information that had been correctly reported in the June examinations, and that losses over longer periods of time were considerably greater♦ Gederstrom,^ Investigating the retention of zoology by seventy-five college students, administered‘an informa­ tion scale in zoology to the members of the class at the beginning of the course, in order to measure initial knowl­ edge.

The-test was given again at the end of the course,

and a third time after a one-year interval during which zoology was not studied.

It was found that after one year

.students retained from 60 per cent to 80 per cent of the gains made during the course.

Women retained better than

J. A. Cederstrom, "Retention of Information G-ained in Courses in College -Zoology," Journal of G-enetic LPsycholoRV. 38:516-20, December, 1930.

41

rmen.

Those who knew more, that is, those whose scores

-i

placed them in the upper quartile on the initial test, re­ tained more than twice as much as those who knew the least. The investigator stated, however, that the number of subjects in these two categories was too small to justify any general conclusions. In a study of retention of different types of material in zoology, Tyler 28r tested eighty-two students at Ohio State University fifteen months after they had completed a course in elementary zoology.

During the intervening period

none of these subjects studied zoology further.

The test

called for the following types of knowledge: (l) naming animal structures pictured in diagrams; (2) identifying technical terms; (3) recalling information; (4) applying principles to new situations; ences.

(5) interpreting new experi­

In the first three sections of the test, the losses

over the fifteen-month period amounted to 77 per cent, 26 per cent, and 21 per cent respectively.

In the fourth,

the application of principles, there was a 0.7 per cent gain; in the fifth, the interpreting of new experiences, there was a gain of 25 per cent. entire test was 22 per cent.

The average loss for the

Tyler concluded that the per­

manent results of college science education are not the specific elements of information recalled, and recommended - p a

R. W. Tyler, nThe Permanence of Learning,” Journal of Higher Education. 4:203-4, June, 1933* L

_j

42 j—

that courses be organized and centered around those ob­

—|

jectives which have the more permanent value in college education.

The relative permanence of the ability to

apply scientific principles, he suggested, should justify the teaching of such principles. Study in the retention of botany.

Johnssought

to determine the extent of retention of botanical informa­ tion acquired by twenty-four students in the general botany course at the University of Minnesota, and to ascertain the relation between the amount of information retained and the initial amount of botanical information possessed by these students.

Objective final examinations were administered

at the end of each quarter of the year during which botany was studied.

The examinations included 587 items, of which

265 were true-false questions and 322 multiple-choice items. The same tests were given at the beginning of the fall term the following semester.

The mean score for the immediate

recall examination at the close of the course was 2 0 7 .5 ; for the retention test after the three-month interval, 117*3 •

The mean difference of 90.2 represented a loss of

43*4 per cent during the vacation interval.

For'a second

group comprising thirty-six students, the initial and final scores in a botany test given at an interval of six months were 141.8 and 74.1 respectively, the mean differ-

2 9 Palmer 0. Johnson, l1The Permanence of Learning in Elementary Botany,11 Journal of Educational Psychology. l21:37-47, January, 1930. —*

r

-'"I

enee of 67.7 representing a decrease of 47*8 per cent. Thus, the investigator found that these students had re­ tained about 55 per cent of their botanical information over periods ranging from three to six months.

He found

that students who possessed the greatest amount of botan­ ical information, as measured by the particular tests employed in the study, were likely to retain more of this knowledge after a lapse of three or six months* time. Summary of studies in the retention of science. The investigations into the retention of science reported in this section of the review of related literature dis­ play varying approaches to the problem and differing results.

Only one study distinguished between recall and

recognition scores.

Some studies involved delay periods

of one year or more between initial and retention tests. In those investigations in which the summer vacation period constituted the time interval, percentages of loss ranged from 8 per cent in high-school chemistry-^ to 43 per cent in college botany.^

In every case in which different types

of knowledge were considered separately, it was found that students retained best the ability to apply principles and scientific facts, and forgot most readily specific informa­ tion and such technical skills as the ability to balance equations and to employ scientific terminology. Powers, op. cit.. p. 349. l

Johnson, op. pit., p. 46.

_i

A4 r III.

STUDIES IN THE RETENTION OF LANG-U-AG-ES

The retention of language has been the subject of investigation in studies in the field of Latin and of French. Studies in the retention of Latin.

In a study of

.the retention of the principles of Latin syntax Over the summer vacation period by a group of first and second-year high-school boys, Kennedy-^2 administered the Pressey Latin Syntax Test at the end of the school year and again at the commencement of the next term.

Those pupils who had com­

pleted two semesters of Latin were designated the Latin two students; those who had completed four semesters1 work, the Latin four students.

These groups were then divided accord­

ing to their intention to continue or to discontinue the study of Latin.

The Latin two continuation group numbered

115 pupils; the Latin two stop group, forty-two pupils.

In

the Latin four continuation group were twenty-four pupils; in the Latin four stop group, sixty-three pupils.

The

Pressey Latin Syntax Test was administered to these 244 students at the end of the school year, and was repeated at the beginning of the following term.

The continuation

groups were tested for the third time one month after the work of the fall term had been under way; the stop groups Leo R. Kennedy, 11The Retention of Certain Latin Syntactical Principles by First and Second Year Latin Students after Various Time Intervals,1’ Journal of LEducational Psychology. 2 5 :132-46, February, 1932. J

r —i were tested the following May, one year after the initial test.

The Pressey Latin Syntax Test includes seventy-two

multiple-choice items, and is thus a recognition test.

The

Terman Group Test of Mental Ability was administered to all participating pupils.

The mean intelligence quotient of

the continuation students was 127; that of the stop students was 95-6. Kennedy found the following percentages of retention over the summer vacation period: Latin two continuation group, 70 per cent; Latin two stop group, 71 per cent; Latin four continuation group, 85 per cent; Latin four stop group, 66 per cent.

When the pupils whose intelligence

quotients placed them in the upper quartile were compared with those in the lowest quartile, the more intelligent were found to have achieved 18 per cent more identically correct responses at the end of the vacation interval.

In

terms of the total number of correct responses, the pupils in the fourth quartile remembered 3 per cent better than those in the first quartile.

It was found that incorrect

responses persisted.over a one-year period i n >the stop group from 6 per cent to 29 per cent in excess of chance. When the retention of the various groups included in the study was considered, the amount of persistence of error was found to’ range from 6 per cent to 19 per cent.

The

investigator suggested that these findings seem to indicate that some errors were very well learned.

46 r-

After one month of study in the fall, the Latin two continuation group achieved a mean which was 2.9 points greater than the pre-vacation average, the difference being statistically significant.

The Latin four continuation

group, on the other hand, showed a decrease of 2.3 between the initial test and the testtgiven to them one year later. Kennedy suggested that the difference in f&vor of the Latin two group was probably due to the fact that these pupils had been more recently in contact with the principles exempli­ fied in the Pressey test. In summary, Kennedy found losses in knowledge of Latin syntax over the summer vacation period ranging from 15 per cent to 34 per cent.

Over a one-year period, losses

ranged from 32 to 42 per cent.

As the result of his find­

ings, he concluded that the intention to continue the study of Latin was an important factor in the retention of Latin syntax.

He found a tendency for errors committed in the

initial test to persist throughout the summer and through­ out the one-year interval.

General intelligence did not

appear to be the determining factor in the acquisition s.nd retention of Latin syntax; the significant factor in the retention of syntax was apparently initial achievement in the subject. Sister Miriam de Lourdes McMahon "5v3 investigated the 33 Sister Miriam de Lourdes McMahon, 11The Effects of Summer Vacation on the Retention of Latin,Vocabulary,” (unpublished Master’s thesis, Fordham University, New LYork, 1946), 107 pp. ^

retention of Latin vocabulary by 276 pupils in the first and second-year classes of two diocesan high schools in New/ York City.

As in Kennedy’s study, the subjects of this- in­

vestigation were divided into Latin two and Latin four continuation and stop groups*

Intelligence quotients were

obtained by administering the Otis Self-Administerin& Tests of Mental Ability. Higher Examination. Form A, in order to determine the relationship between intelligence and degree of retention of Latin vocabulary.

In order to

measure the relationship between reading comprehension and vocabulary retention, the New York State Reading; Progress Test. Form A, was administered to the participating stu­ dents.

The Latin vocabulary test which was used to measure

retention consisted of two hundred words and terms which had occurred most frequently in the New York Regents Exami­ nation over a period of ten years.

Terms and words were

presented in Latin, and the subjects were required*to supply the meanings in English; this was, therefore, a test of the recall function of memory. The Latin vocabulary test was administered to all the subjects in June, 1944, and was repeated in September of the same year at the beginning of the fall term.

One month

later the test was given for a third time to the 130 pupils who constituted the continuation group, to determine whether one month’s instruction at the beginning of the fall semes­ ter would suffice to restore these students to their June status in Latin vocabulary.

The initial mean achieved in

48 r June by the total group was 144.27; the September mean, 133.63.

“»

The mean difference between the two measures,

10.64, was statistically significant and represented a loss of 7.4 per cent of pre-vacation achievement.

For the con­

tinuation group, the loss was 8.5 per cent over the summer interval; for the stop group, 16 -per cent.

The investigator

concluded that the intention to continue the study of Latin operated as an influential factor in the retention of Latin vocabulary.

When tested in October, one month after the

commencement of school, the mean score of the continuation group was 7.4 per. cent less than the June average.

Thus,

these pupils failed to regain their pre-vacation knowledge of vocabulary after one month’s further study in the fall. The difference between the retention of boys and of girls over the vacation period was not statistically significant for the total group of subjects.

In the continuation

group, however, boys surpassed girls in the retention of Latin vocabulary, and the difference in favor of the boys was statistically significant.

The relationship between

mental ability and retention of Latin vocabulary by the total group was found to be slight, the coefficient of correlation amounting to .41 * .034.

There was a low but

positive correlation between reading comprehension and vocabulary for the total group, as indicated by the corre­ lation coefficient of .39 ±. .0 3 5 * In considering this study- of Latin vocabulary Retention, the fact that the test employed was of the recall-J

49 rtype Is of signif icance.

Since recall scores are as a rule"1

lower than recognition scores,^ the loss of 7*6 per cent in vocabulary sustained by these pupils over the vacation period compares favorably with the results of Kennedy1s study,_

in which pupils displayed a loss of knowledge of •

Latin grammar amounting to 15 per cent, as measured by rec­ ognition scores. ■56 Anderson and Jordan^ reported a study in the learn­

ing and retention of Latin vocabulary by a group of thirty seventh-grade pupils attending the public schools of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The'"intelligence quotients of the

subjects were obtained by means of the National Intelli-

/

gence Tests. English vocabulary was measured by the Thorndike Test of Word Knowledge; reading, by the ThorndikeMcCall Silent Reading Ability Test.

The Latin test included

a vocabulary of 250 words from the Lodge list of the 500 most common words of Caesar, together with a few Latin phrases, all of which were presented to the pupils with the English equivalents.

Nouns, adjectives, prepositions, and

conjunctions were grouped into vooabularies which were built up into four groups: (l) identical words, such as provincia; (2) associative words, i.e., words with English derivatives, such as copia. fuga;

^

Luh, op. cit.

^

Kennedy, op. cit.

(3) non-associative words,

J. P. Anderson and A. M. Jordan, "Learning and ReLtention of Latin Words and Phrases," Journal of Educational-1 Psychology. 19:485-96, October, 1928.

50 r~

with no similarities or equivalents in English, as telum.

“i

mora; (4) phrases with familiar English equivalents, such as e pluribus unum. "

Vocabularies were taught daily over a /

period of fifteen weeks, studied immediately after each pre­ sentation, then reproduced in the first test.

The pupils

were retested the following day, one week after study, three weeks after study, and eight weeks after study.

In the im­

mediate recall test, words were presented in the same order as that in which they had been learned. words were given in different order.

In later tests, the

In the immediate re­

call test, there was a 7 6 per cent retention of words-, 69 per cent of phrases.

The following day, retention of words

and phrases amounted to 62 per cent of the original achieve­ ment.

After eight weeks, 54 per cent of the words were

retained, 50 per cent of the phrases.

A high correlation

was found between immediate and delayed recall.

Those who

learned the most displayed a smaller percentage of loss in the material learned; those who learned the least forgot a larger percentage of the material learned. who learned the most retained the most.

That is, those

There was a high

correlation between intelligence and immediate recall, and between intelligence and delayed recall.

A low and non^sig-

nificant correlation was found between word knowledge and immediate memory of Latin vocabulary, and between word knowledge and delajred memory.

In type of vocabulary content,

. identical words were best remembered, followed by associa­ tive words; idioms and phrases came next; non-associative

51 r words, last.

In general, there was a retention of 50 per

-

cent of the material learned after a two-month delay period. Since these seventh-grade pupils were not studying Latin in any other hut this particular vocabulary form, the material for them closely approached the nature of nonsense material. It is true that where possible the words and phrases were presented with.reference to English derivatives; neverthe­ less, the knowledge that accrues, from the use of vocabulary \

in translating never was part of the experience of these pupils.

Again, the condition of an intervening period

marked by the absence of formal study or instruction seems to have been lacking in this study. Studies in the re tention of French.

Data concerning

the retention of modern languages as learned in high school and college are meager.

Brooks

reported an unpublished

study of retention of French vocabulary in which the Henmon French Vocabulary Tests were given to several groups of boys who were just finishing third-year French.

The tests

were repeated at intervals of six months and eleven months during which periods there had been no further instruction in French.

During the six-month interval, the vocabulary

scores of 155 boys, as measured at the close of the course by Form JC of the Henmon test and after the delay interval by Form II of the same test, displayed a decrease of 7 per cent.

During the next five months, there was an additional 57 Brooks, op. cit., pp. 264-66.

52 drop of 12 per cent, as measured by Form III of the Henmon test.

Brooks suggested that the use of equivalent forms of

the test, rather than repetition of the identical tests, tended to cast doubt on the validity of the findings* In a second part of the same investigation, fiftyfive high-school seniors: repeated the final examination covering the last:semester *s work of third-year French at an interval of eleven months subsequent•to the first ad­ ministration of the test.

Results showed a loss of 19 per

cent in vocabulary and 31 per cent in a composite measure which included'other abilities in French as well as knowledge of vocabulary. Summary of studies in the retention of lan^ua^es. Two of the studies reported in this part of the survey of the related literature dealt with retention of knowledge over the period of the summer vacation, and therefore were pertinent to the present problem.

Both investigations

were concerned with Latin; both observed the conditions. necessary to the study of retention.

Both employed ob-

jeetive tests; the one using a standardized test,

the

other, a test constructed from the Regents examination.^ Over the summer* vacation period, losses in knowledge of Latin grammar were found to range from.15 per cent to 3^* per cent when measured by recognition-type tests.

In

Latin vocabulary, losses ranged from 8.5 per cent to 38 Kennedy, op. cit. * * 0

0?

Sister Miriam de Lourdes, pp. cit.

- 1

53 F~" 16 per cent, in terms of recall scores.

Over a period of



six months, losses in French vocabulary amounted to 7 per cent, when measured by equivalent forms of a standardized test*

There were conflicting findings with reference to

the relationship between intelligence and degree of reten­ tion*

In the field of Latin, both investigators found that

the intention.to continue the study of the language was an important factor in the achievement and retention of pupils in high-school Latin classes. IV.

STUDIES IN THE RETENTION OF HISTORY

Bassett 4-0 conducted an investigation to ascertain the retention of history by 810 pupils in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades9 with special reference to the factors that influence retention.

Six tests were con­

structed by the investigator, and based on the material outlined in the course of study in history for the public schools of Baltimore*

Consisting of true-false, comple­

tion, multiple-choice, and four essay-type items, each test covered the work of one semester.

At the beginning

of the sixth- grade, an initial test was given to determine the amount of knowledge of history possessed by these pupils at the outset of the three-year survey.

After

^ Sarah Jane Bassett, Retention of History in the Sixth, Sevenths and Eighth Grades with Special Reference to the Factors that Influence Retention (Johns Hopkins University Studies in.Education, No. 12. Baltimore: LThe Johns Hopkkns Press, 1928), 101 pp.

four months, a test was given in the work so far covered; after eight months, the original test was repeated and at the same time a second test, covering the second semester1s work, was administered.

After twelve months of instruction,

the previous measures were again administered; together with a new test covering the third semester’s work. same4procedure was followed"after sixteen months.

The Means

and standard deviations were computed for the different test distributions, and the percentage of material recalled was obtained for each time interval.

It was found that 12

per cent of the knowledge of history was lost by the sub­ jects of this study over a four-month period; 16 per cent, after eight months; 25 per cent, after twelve months; 30 per cent after sixteen months.

Those who knew the most in

the first retention tests continued to rank highest in later tests, but forgot more than those who had achieved less in the first tests.

Those with higher mental ages

tended to retain more than those of lower mental age. Since the subjects of her study had retained TO per cent of the history content at the end of a sixteen-month period, Bassett concluded that the amount of history for­ gotten by these pupils was very slight.

It is to be noted

that throughout the entire period of the investigation, history was being studied; thus, there was no interval be­ tween acquisition and retention tests in which the subjects were not studying the subject under investigation.

The

^procedure was justified by the investigator on the grounds

55 j—

*^*|

that each half-year’s work constituted a unit which was not

repeated or formally reviewed during the following semesters. As in many other studies of retention, the measuring instru­ ment employed both recall and recognition items. In an investigation into the relationship of summer2li time forgetting,to intelligence, Kolberg administered the Van Wag&enen American History Scales. Information Scale 32 and the Terman Group Test of Mental Ability to 163 seventhgrade pupils at the close of the school year.

The history

test was repeated in September, and the difference between scores, for each pupil was taken as the index of retention. Since the score on the Van Waggenen test does not indicate the number of items answered correctly, but rather the dif­ ficulty of the task which a pupil can perform with a correctness of 50 per cent, changes in scores over the vacation period did not indicate amount of loss directly. The pupils were grouped according to their ranking above an intelligence quotient point of 120, and below 90.

Sub­

ject matteri’was classified as easy or difficult, and conclusions drawn with reference to changes in scores. Kolberg found an increase in knowledge of easy material during the summer interval, and a loss of difficult mate­ rial.

The group with intelligence quotients above 120

showed superiority in retention of difficult subject matter when compared with the below-90 intelligence ^ O.'W. Kolberg, "A Study of Summer-Time Forget­ ting,” Elementary School Journal. 355281-87, December, 1934.;

,

56 r quotient group.

When the entire range of intelligence was

“1

considered., there appeared to "be no relation between reten­ tion and intelligence quotients.

The investigator accounted

for the improvement! which occurred in easy material over the vacation interval by the fact that certain test items called for facts which the pupils had met several times prior to their study of seventh-grade history; these items involved material which had been overlearned and frequently reviewed. The difficult material of the test covered new facts which had been more recently learned, and it was in these items that forgetting occurred. Summary of studies,in the retention of history.

Mo

clear-cut agreement of results-emerge from these studies in the retention of history. Bassett 42 found a degree of relationship between intelligence and retention of history, 4*5 while Kolberg found no such relationship. The retention n/' of history appeared to be considerable, although definite statements concerning the retention of history over the summer interval cannot be made from the results obtained in the investigations here reported. V.

STUDIES IN THE RETENTION OF PSYCHOLOGY

The retention of knowledge acquired in courses in psychology over time intervals of varying lengths has been Bassett, pp. cit. ^

Kolberg, op. cit.

57 r. -I the subject of several investigations at the college level. Eurieh

44

measured the amount of general psychology

retained by a group of ninety-nine students who registered for a course in educational psychology nine months after the termination of the general psychology course.

For a second

group, consisting of eighty-three subjects, the time inter­ val between the two courses was six months.

Retention was

measured by two comparable forms of a test constructed by members of the department of psychology of the University of Minnesota s. These tests, designated as Psychology 1 Test and Psychology 2 Test, each including 150 items, the

first gomposed of completion items, and the second of multiple-choice items.

The ninety-nine students in the

first group attained a mean score of 90.03 in the first administration of the Psychology 1 Test; after a ninemonth interval their average was 66.29.

The mean

difference of 23-74 was statistically significant, as in­ dicated by the critical ratio of 19*30.

For the second

group of students, numbering eighty-three, who took the Psychology 2 Test at the close of the general psychology course and again six months later, the initial mean was 104.01 and the retention mean, 93*77-

The mean difference

of 10.24 was statistically significant, as was evident from the critical ratio of 7-7-

Thus, the second group sus-

^ Alvin 0. Eurich, "Retention of Knowledge Acquired in a Course in General Psychology,11 Journal of Applied LPsycholop;y. 18:209-19, Mareh, 1934. ^

58 Gained a smaller decrease over a six-month delay period than did the first group over a nine—month lapse of* time# Al­ though the investigator made no distinction between the retention scores on Test 3., which were recall scores, and those on Test

which were of the recognition type, it is

probable that the different types of tests used influenced the results, and should have been a factor for consideration in interpreting the results.^

Eurich found no apparent ten­

dency for students who had earned the highest marks at the end of the course to retain their relatively high position in the retention tests:six or nine months later.

As a result

of his study, this investigator concluded that students tend­ ed to retain a substantial amount of measured knowledge six and nine months after they had taken a course in general psychology* In a study of retention of psychology, G-reene^ ad­ ministered to a group of students in introductory psychology an objective test: at the termination of the course in June* The following October, at the beginning of the next semester, the test was repeated.

Test items included completion, true-

false, multiple-choice, and labelling questions, thus calling for both recognition and recall types of memory.

The test

was repeated'at eight-month and twenty-month intervals.

In

the pre-vacation test, the mean score was 70; in the retention Luh, op. cit., pp. 70-84. ^ L

G-reene, pp. cit*. pp. 266-70.

59

T~

test after the three-month delay period, the mean was 42, the difference of 28 representing a loss of 40 per cent of initial information.

After an eight-month interval, the

loss was found to be 80 per cent; after twenty months, mean decreases ranged from 80 per cent to 90 per cent.

Prom his

work in the retention.of psychology, which was reenforced by similar investigations in zoology and physiological chem47 istry, Greene concluded that college students showed a loss of about one-half of the information correctly re­ ported in the June examinations after a delay period of three months. Watson.48 conducted a study in retention in which he investigated the relationship between intelligence and rec­ ognition, and intelligence and recall, for time intervals ra,nging from two to fifty-eight months.

The subjects were

one hundred college students who had completed^a course in elementary' psychology.

For each of these the investigator

obtained a composite measure of intelligence by taking the average percentile position on the Dearborn Group- Test. Examination C, the Otis SeIf-Administering Te st of Mental Ability. Higher Ex am ina11on . Form D, and the Inglis Test English Vocabulary.

At the termination of the course,

the subjects were tested for immediate recall and recogni47 See pp. 49-50. Robert" I . Watson, An Experimental Study of the Permanence of Course Material in Introductory Psychology (Archives of Psychology, Vol. 32, No. 225« New York: ^olumbia University, May, 1938)> 84 pp.

60

r'

tion of material acquired in the second semester of the course in general psychology, by tests which yielded sepa­ rate recall and recognition scores.

These students;were

then divided into six groups which were tested at intervals ranging from two months to five years.

Each group was

tested three times, a different test being used at each interval.

Care was exercised to differentiate in each

test between recall and recognition scores.

Test I in­

cluded the objective portion of the final examination in the second semester's work.

Test II covered material drawn

from a textbook on social psychology which the subjects had read independently outside of the class and on which there had been no lectures or class discussion.

Test III con­

sisted of the objective portion of the first-semester examination, the content of which:had not been formally reviewed during the second semester.

Watson found that,

although retention decreased with time, complete forgetting was not attained even at the end of fifty-eight months. Recognition scores decreased gradually and progressively; recall scores-, abruptly and progressively.

The ratio of

recognition to recall scores in favor of the greater effi­ ciency of recognition increased as the reter^ion periods increased in length.

The absolute variability, as ex­

pressed by the standard deviation, did not change appreciably with lengthened time intervals.

Relative

variability, as expressed by the coefficient of variabil­ ity,

increased as time intervals increased.

The relative

61

1 —

"

^

variability was greater for recall than for recognition.

—j

A'

similar and substantial relationshiprwas exhibited by imme­ diate recall and immediate recognition, the coefficients of correlation amounting to .48 ±. .05 and .44 -±. .05 respectively; and by delayed recall and recognition, with coefficients of correlation of .37 ± *04 and .38 ± *07 respectively.

There was a tendency for the relationship

of recognition to intelligence and of recall to intelli­ gence to decrease at first, and then to increase as the delay interval increased.

After the five-year lapse,

Watson found that about 50 per cent of the material learned in the course was retained when measured by the recognition method. Summary of studies in psychology.

Although the

studies in the retention of psychology here reviewed pre­ sent some conflicting results, in general it can be stated that the investigators found a fairly high degree of mate­ rial retained over intervals equal in length to the summer vacation period, with the exception of G-reene, 49 whose subjects lost one-half of their measured knowledge of psy­ chology over the summer interval.

Differences in findings

are probably to be ascribed to the types of items included in the measuring instruments employed by these investigators. Only Watson 50 separated the functions of recall and 49 G-reene, op. cit., pp. 266-70. ^ Watson, op. cit.. pp. 50-62.

62 recognition in measuring retention, and in so doing found a definite degree of superiority for recognition over re­ call, for intervals of less than- one year, as well as for delay periods ranging to five years in length.

The find­

ings of Watson serve to emphasize the necessity of attention to the method of measurement in any consideration of reten­ tion. VI.

GENERAL STUDIES IN THE RETENTION OF ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL SUBJECT MATTER

Investigating the effect of summer vacation upon the retention of elementary school subjects, Sister Irmina-^ administered a battery of tests to 1,184 pupils In grades one to seven inclusive in three schools located in Ohio, Kentucky,_ and Wisconsin.

The number of pupils per grade

ranged from 152 in,the seventh grade to 197 in the third grade.

The tests, administered at the close of the school

year, included the following: Otis Group Primary Examina­ tion to the first, second, and third grades; Otis Group Intelligence Scale to grades four through seven; Gates Primary Reading Tests to the first and second grades; Stanford Reading; Examination to the second and third grades; Gates Silent'Reading; Tests to grades three through seven; Diagnostic Computation Scales. Part JE to grades two through four;' Part II of the same scales to' grades five 51 Sister M. Irmina, The Effects of Summer Vacation upon the Retention of the Elementary School Subjects TCatholic University of America Research Bulletins, Vol. 3,. Hjos. 3 and 4, 1928), pp. 3-99.

63 !“

through seven;

Monroe Diagnostic Tests in Arithmetic to

”1

grades four through seven; Morrison-McCall Spelling; Scale« Lists 1, 2, and 2

grades two through seven; Stanford

Achievement Advanced Examination‘to grades four through seven*

All tests except those of intelligence were re­

peated at the beginning of the fall term.

In most cases,

the same forms as had "been used in June were administered in the second testing.

However, an alternate form of the

-Diagnostic Computation Scales was employed, and different forms of the Morrison-McCall Spelling; Seales were -used. Means and standard deviations were computed for all test scores.

Mean differences between the pre-vacation and

post-vacation scores on the' various .tests were determined at each grade level, and the standard errors of the mean differ­ ences were obtained. The investigator found that there was a high degree of permanence of learning in the elementary-school subjects as measured by the particular tests employed, and that the pupils participating in her study were not seriously handi­ capped by vacation-time forgetting.

However, there were

losses in arithmetic computational skills which, in some grades at least, were not recovered, by the end of one month*s instruction in the. fall.

The need for emphasis upon

accuracy at the *beginning of the new term, rather than upon speed, was suggested by the findings.

Arithmetic reasoning

improved in all grades during the vacation, and the increase Lwas found to be related to the ability to read and to think^

64 n logically.

"i The summer vacation interval caused no appreci­

able change in reading ability of a class.

Individual

pupils were found, however, with scores displaying great gains and great losses.

The losses were usually followed

by corresponding gains within the first two weeks of the fall session.

The content subjects, which included nature

study, history, and literature, all showed gains.

Because

the tests employed in these subjects were not considered to be adequate measures of achievement, no final conclusions 'were drawn with reference to the content subjects.

Sister

Irmina concluded that the influence of the summer vacation on the.loss of children*s abilities in the elementary-school subjects has been unduly stressed and the need for review work at the beginning:;of the fall term unduly, emphasized. In a similar study at the fifth and sixth-grade level, Noonan go investigated the influence of the summer va­ cation period upon such skills as the ability to compute-, to solve•problems in arithmetic, to read, to spell, and to draw'. The subjects were 803 children in grades five and six in the public schools of St. Louis.

Of these, 222 constituted a

summer-school group who attended classes six days a week for s'even weeks of the vacation period, some of them taking review and others doing advanced work in arithmetic, grammar,

Margaret E. Noonan, Influence of the Summer Vaca­ tion on the Abilities of Fifth.and Sixth G-rade Children (Teachers College Contributions to Education, No. 204. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1926), 103 pp. l

*

J

65 r

geography, and history.

Tests given in June and repeated

*i

in September included the Trabue Completion-Test Lanp;uap;e Scales B and £; the Thorndike Reading Scale Alpha 2, Part 2, testing sentence understanding; the Thorndike Visual Vocabu­ lary Test. A-2-X and B-2-X, testing word knowledge; the Woody Multiplication Test. Series A; twelve arithmetic prob­ lems from standard tests; one hundred spelling words arranged in sentences; and two drawing tests in which pupils were required to draw a man and a house.

The September test­

ing program utilized the equivalent Forms D and K of the Trabue Language Seales. Forms A-2-Y and B-2-Y of the Visual Vocabulary -Test, and required the drawing of a man and a snowball fight.

The other retention tests used the identical

forms of the pre-vacation measures. Noonan found no difference in post-vaeation scores in language and in arithmetic problems.

There was a slight gain

after the summer interval in reading.

In language, arithme­

tic problems, and reading, there were no differences in vacation score changes between the summer-school and■nonsummer- school pupils.

In spelling, a slight loss occurred

during the vacation for the non-summer-school pupils; a slight gain, for the summer-school pupils.

In multiplica­

tion and in drawing, the summer-school pupils showed slight gains; the others tended to retain their pre-vacation stand­ ing.

All summer-time gains and losses were based on

differences between median scores of the pre-vacation and L

post-vacation distributions.

Noonan concluded that summer

-J

66

'‘Vacation did not cause significant changes in school abili-~i ties considered in her study; that current opinion has greatly exaggerated the amount of deterioration that occurs over the summer vacation; and that the influence of summer school in improving the abilities of pupils was very small. She recommended that it would seem "thoroughly sound, on the basis of the study, to eliminate in these grades, the reviews that are frequently given at the beginning of the fall term to counteract the ’forgetting* that has' been supposed to #

•-

occur during the summer vacation "53 Schrepel and Lassett^S4 investigated the amount of re­ p e r i o d .

tention of factual material by 121 pupils in the junior high school.

In May, 1934, the New Stanford:Achievement Tests.

Form W, were administered to seventy-two pupils of grade eight and-to forty-nine pupils of grade nine.

Form V of the

same test was given the following September.

G-ains or losses

in knowledge of elementary-schooll subject matter by each pu­ pil in every subject were obtained separately.

The subjects

in which tests were given included paragraph meaning, word meaning, dictation, language usage, literature, history and civics, geography, phj^siology and hygiene, arithmetic rea­ soning, and arithmetic computation.

Means, mean differences,

and standard errors of the differences were obtained in each

55 rbid., p. 68. 54 ^arjLe Schrepel and H. K. Las sett, "On the Loss of Knowledge by Junior High-School Pupils Over the Summer Vacation," Journal of Educational Psychology. 27:299-303, LApril, 1936. -1

677

r

of these subjects.

Eighth-grade pupils displayed a total

n

mean gain of 1.32 in all subjects except arithmetic compu­ tation, in which there occurred a mean decrease of 2.53* An increase ini arithmetic problem-solving was so slight as to be negligible, amounting to .05*

The greatest gain was

found in physiology and hygiene, with a mean difference of 2.89 constituting a significant vacation-period increase. The ninth-grade pupils sustained" a small mean loss in arith­ metic reasoning and language, amounting to 0.25 and 0.Ir­ respectively; large and significant losses of 2.68 in physi­ ology and hygiene, and of 4.15 in arithmetic computation; significant gains in geography and in word meaning of 0.91 and 2.64 respectively.. Mental ages were obtained by means of the Otis Self-Administering Tests of Mental Ability. Pupils of higher mental ages, were found to have achieved higher initial scores, to have displayed smaller summer-time losses, and to have shown greater summer-time gains than pupils of lower mental age•, Schrepel and: Lassett concluded that pupils as exempli­ fied in their study tended to show no serious loss of subject matter over a summer vacation period of fourteen weeks* ex­ cept in the ease of arithmetic computation.

Pupils returned

to school in the autumn with greater reading ability than they had possessed in the spring.

The investigators sug­

gested that "the strenuous reviews in which some teachers indulge each autumn to overcome the loss of knowledge that Lpupils are supposed to have sustained:' over the summer do

r

n

not seem to "be warranted' by the amount of forgetting RR shown by this study.

Summary of studies :.in retention!of elementary-school sub.iect matter.. These investigations into the retention of knowledge acquired in the first eight years of school show a considerable agreement in findings.

In general, there

was evident a tendency toward: a high degree of' retention of subject matter over the summer vacation period, except in the case of ability in arithmetic computation, in which there was found an appreciable amount of summer-time loss in every investigation. VII. SUMMARY'-.' Experimental investigations concerned with the retention of subject matter acquired in school have been conducted’under varying conditions^ in different subjectmatter fields.;at the elementary, secondary-school, and college levels.

The time intervals in these studies have

ranged from a few weeks to five years.

The measuring in­

struments have included)standardized and unstandardized tests, some of which have,involved recall, some recog ni ­ tion, and some both recall and recognition functions:.

In

some, instruction in the subject matter under measurement has continued throughout the retention period; in the greater number of studies, there has been observed a L

Ibid., p. 302.

_i

69 rdefinite time interval during which no formal study or instruction has occurred.

n

In some eases, .different tests,

or different forms of the same test.have been used for the pre-delay-interval and post-delay-interval measurements,, thus introducing a second set of scores: not directly com­ parable to the first.

In a few studies, amount of

knowledge possessed previous to the intervenient period was assumed without actual measurement.

The greater number of

of studies, however, have displayed a fairly close adherence to the conditions of the scientific study of retention, which include (l) measurement at the close of the period of study or instruction,

(2) an Intervening period during which no

formal study of, or instruction .in, the subject matter occurs, and (3) remeasurement at the close of the delay interval before further learning in the subject matter takes place. Since the conditions,'under which retention studies in school situations have been made vary considerably, and since findings.have been expressed in varying terms of mean differences, median differences, and percentages of differ­ ences, no direct comparison can be made between results of the investigations reported in this survey of related liter­ ature *

Despite the varied conditions of measurement, certain

facts emerge from a study of the findingsi

At all levels the

retention of problem-solving ability has been found to be great, and frequently there has been apparent an improvement after the delay Interval.

56 gee p. 16 .

Similar results were found in the

-1

70 “i ability to generalize in science, to apply principles, and

i~

to interpret new situations in the light of past learning* In the meager data availableein the field of history, re­ tention has been found to be comparatively high*

The

greatest amount of forgetting has appeared consistently in mathematical computation,at all levels, and in those skills in science concerned with terminology and with the writing of formulas and balancing of equations in chemistry*

It

can be stated that in almost all studies of retention of in­ formation acquired in school, considerably more was retained than was forgotten over the summer vacation period. The data presented in this survey of the retention of school learning emphasizes the fact that the amount of retention of such learning over comparatively short time intervals, such as the summer vacation period, appears to be greater than is ordinarily supposed.

In every case, the

amount retained has been found to be greater than that ob­ tained by Ebbinghaus for nonsense materials.

Where losses

occurred over the summer recess, the curves for the reten­ tion of school materials tended to assume the general shape of the Ebbinghaus curve, but the curves for the meaningful material acquired in school situations and measured by the recall and recognition methods showed less 'abruptTcleclines and levelled off at a higher rate.

In general, when all the

data have been assembled, it would appear that there has been found an encouragingly high degree of retention of the L knowledges and skills acquired in school.

_j

CHAPTER III THE SUBJECTS, MATERIALS, AND PROCEDURES The present study was undertaken to determine the amount of retention of certain high-school subject matter over the period of the summer vacation by pupils in the first, second, and third years of high school*

The investi­

gation was also conducted to compare the retention of those who achieved high scores on the June tests with those who achieved low scores; to ascertain the differences in reten­ tion, if- any, between pupils displaying different levels of intelligence; to compare the retention of boys with that of girls; to compare the retention of the middle 50 per cent of the distribution in each branch of subject matter with that of the entire group; to determine whether knowledge acquired in some fields of high-school subject matter tended to be retained better than that acquired in other areas; and to ascertain whether different types of knowledge within a single subject, such as elementary computational skills and problem-solving in algebra, or translation ability and vo­ cabulary knowledge in Latin, tended to be retained better than other types of knowledge within the same subject.

Re­

tention was studied by administering selected tests in May, 1948, at the close of the school year 1947-48, and by re­ peating the identics.! tests the following September before further formal study was undertaken.

Data obtained from

72 r~ 1 the pre-vacation and post-vacation tests were subjected to statistical treatment in order to determine the differences; and the reliability of the differences between performances on tests in certain high-school subjects.

The different

areas and branches, of subject-matter in which retention was studied included the following: A • Mathematics 1.

Elementary algebra, total ability a. b. c.

Computational skills Ability to manipulate formulas and to interpret graphs Problem-solving ability

2*. Intermediate algebra, total ability a • COmpu tat iona1 ski11s b*. Problem-solving ability 3** Plane geometry, total ability a. b.

Knowledge of geometric facts and . principles Ability to understand construction. problems and to reason logically

B • Science

0.

1.

G-eneral science

2.

Biology

3*

Chemistry

Languages 1.

Elementary Latin, total ability a. Translation b. Vocabulary c • Grammar

2.

L

Second-year Latin, total ability a. Trans lat ion b. Vocabulary c . Grammar

“*

3*

First-year Spanish a. Translation b . Vocabulary; c # Grammar

4#. First-year Frencha* b. c•

Translation: Vocabulary Grammar

D . History 1*

World history

2.

American history

E . Religion 1.

First-year religion

2*

Second-year religion

This chapter is concerned with presenting a descrip­ tion of the subjects who participated in this investigation of retention in these high-school areas, an account of the materials.used in carrying on the study, and an exposition of the methods and procedures employed# o

I,#. THE SUBJECTS The 2,234 subjects who participated in this investi­ gation were pupils enrolled in the first, second, and third years of four Catholic central high schools taught by the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, Ohio#

The study was lim­

ited^ to schools taught by members of one religious community in order to decrease the factor of differences arising from methods of teaching.

Similar teacher-training and the com-

r—-

(

munity system of supervision would tend to minimize the ef­

fect of differences: arising from the teaching-method factor. The schools cooperating in the present study' included (l) Catholic Central High School, Springfield, Ohio, a coed­ ucational diocesan central high school; (2) Seton High: School, Cincinnati, Ohio, a diocesan.central high school for girls; (3)St. Mary High School, Hyde Park, Cincinnati, Ohio, a diocesan central high school for girls; (4) Holy Name High School, Cleveland, Ohio, a coeducational central high school The first three of these schools constitute part of the sys­ tem under the administration of the Catholic School Board of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio.

The same courses of

study are followed and the same basic textbooks are used in these institutions.

Courses of study and textbooks used in

the fourth school, Holy Name High School of Cleveland, are the same as, or very -similar to, those prevailing in the Cincinnati system with the exception of two subjects, Latin and religion.

In the Cleveland school, the Graves Latin

Series’*' used in the Latin classes utilizes a vocabulary which differs considerably from that usually offered in first and second-year courses.

This fact would have made it

impossible for the Cleveland pupils to respond adequately to the items of the Cooperative Latin Tests used in the -i

.

Clarus J. Graves, First Latin Book (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1946")," 476 pp• _______ , Second Latin Book (Milwaukee: Bruce ^Publishing Company, 1939), 647 pp*

_j

755 rpresent study, and for this reason the pupils of Holy Name ^ 'School were excluded from the portion of the, investigation involving the retention of Latin.

In the diocese of Cleve­

land the religion course is based on the Quest for Happiness p Series. and the schools are supplied with final objective • tests at the close of the school year.

Since Holy Name was

the only one of the four cooperating schools which used ob­ jective religion tests in May, 1948, the study of retention of knowledge acquired in high-school .religion courses was limited3to the f irst and second-year classes of Holy Name School.. With these two exceptions;^ there was no deliberate apportionment of specific subject matter to certain schools. Although it had been tentatively planned to obtain approxi­ mately two hundred pupils for the study of retention in each of the high-school subjects investigated, the final samples varied in number because of such factors as size of registrations in the various subjects, drop-outs between pre-vacation and post-vacation enrollments, elimination of pupils who had attended summer school, and other causes. Relatively small registrations in intermediate algebra and first-year French in the four cooperating schools made it •necessary to seek additional data from other schools taught by the Sisters of Charity.

These included St. Leo High

^ Clarence E. Elwell, Our Quest for Happiness; A Textbook Series for Hip;h School Religion (Chicago: Mentzer,* Bush-, and Company, 1945 ). ' L.

_

_1

76 School, Detroit, Michigan, which participated in the part

^

of the study involving retention of intermediate algebra; St. Mary‘s Cathedral High School, Lansing, Michigan, and St. James School, Bay City, Michigan, both of which helped to supplement the data in first-year French.

Even with this

additional material, the sampling of French cases was consid­ ered' to be inadequate.

Results obtained7:in the retention of

first-year French were nevertheless ineluded in this report, .for purposes of comparisons with the findings,, obtained in other subjects in which the sampling was more adequate. The number of pupils participating in the various parts of this investigation and the schools from which they were drawn are presented in Table I. II. THE MATERIALS The testing materials employed in the present, inves­ tigation included the Cooperative Achievement Tests, the annual Redlgi-on Tests prepared for the high schools of the diocese of Cleveland, and Form A of the Otis SeIf-Admlnisterins Tests of Mental Ability, Higher Examination. The Cooperative Achievement Tests.

The Cooperative

Tests are measuring instruments developed'for use in sub­ ject-matter areas -at the secondary■and college levels, described by the publishers as "constructed by a trained staff in cooperation with teachers and subject-matter experts,11^ ^ Cooperative Achievement Tests (Princeton: Coopera­ tive Test Division of the Education Testing Service, 1949), -i p. 5 ♦ ■

TABLE I 'APPORTIONMENT OF PUPILS BY SCHOOLS TO VARIOUS SUBJECT-MATTER GROUPS •

Subject

School

n

:

Elementary Algebra

Catholic Central Holy Name

109 154

Intermediate Algebra

Catholic Central Holy Name S t . Leo

52

Plane Geometry

Total N r * >

263

21

85.

12

Holy Name St. Mary

159

General Science

Catholic Central Seton

109 33

Chemistry

Catholic Central Holy Name Seton. S t . Mary

62

Biology

Catholic Central Seton

72 121

193

Elementary Latin

Catholic Central Seton •

94 109

203

Second-jrear Latin..

Catholic Central Seton

103 94

197

First-year Spanish

Holy Name Seton St . Mary

70 - 10 21

3.01

St. James S t . Mary Seton. Cathedral

■9 12 12 9

42

World History

Holy Name

154

154

American History

Catholic Central St. Mary

99 47

146

First-year Religion

Holy Name

162

162-

S^cond-yea,r Religion

Holy Name

169

169

2,234

2,234

First-year FVench

Total .

62

201 -

142

58 42 14

176

-1

78 r

the contents of which are based on analyses of curricula,

p

textbooks, and research studies in accordance with carefully formulated objectives and general plans*.4 The tests have been validated by the item analysis method, which in­ cludes item selection, determination of item difficulty,. and use of the criterion of internal consistency*. The reliability of the tests used in this investi­ gation is a matter of importance, since the differences between two applications of the same test constituted the measure of retention, and a lack of consistency in the test would invalidate the results of the study*. The reliability of the Cooperative Tests.is expressed in terms of the stand­ ard error of measurement, a mode of describing test consis­ tency approved by many statisticians*. Garrett considers it superior to the more frequently used coefficient obtained by the retest or split-half procedure, for the reason that the standard error of a test score takes into account the self-correlation of the test as well as the variability within the standardizing group*.

Flanagan, who established the

system of scaled scores used in the Cooperative Tests, also

4 Ibid.. pp. 5-6. John C. Flanagan, ''General Considerations, in the Selection of Test Items,” Journal of Educational Psychology. 30s6?4-80, November, 1939* *

f.

w Henry E. Garrett, Statistics in Psychology and Education (Longmans, Green, and Company, 194-7), pp. -399402 • _i

79 r

“i maintains that the standard error of measurement is a better index of consistency of measurement. Certain of the difficulties concerned with the in­ terpretation of measures of consistency may be elimi- , nated by reporting these measures in terms of standard errors of measurement. This index of consistency reports the amount of fluctuation expected in the score obtained by a particular individual if he took a large number of similar forms of the same test. These stand. ard errors of measurement, when calculated for various tests in terms of comparable units such as Scaled Scores, provide a direct comparison for consistency of scores on the different tests.' McNemar, on the other hand, calls attention to the limita­ tions of the standard error of measurement as a measure of test consistency. . . . The interpretation of the reliability coefficient in terms of the standard error of measurement definitely assumes homoscedasticity, which is another way of saying that the reliability coefficient is valid only when the error of measurement is of the same order of magnitude for the entire range of scores. Flanagan has met this weakness by presenting the standard error in terms of its location on the scale of scores. Since a test may measure quite accurately in one range and rather inaccurately in another, such stand­ ard errors of measurement should be reported for various selected levels.^ It would seem, therefore, that the method of reporting the reliability of a test in terms of the standard error of

^ John G . Flanagan, The Cooperative Achievement Tests ; A Bulletin Reporting the Basic Princ iples and Proce­ dures in the Development of Their System of Scaled Scores (New York: Cooperative Test Service, 19397* P* 15* 8 Quinn McNemar, Psychological Statistics (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1949), p. 134• 9 Flanagan, The Cooperative Tests. op. cit Lpp. 15-16.

80 rmeasurement, as employed in the Cooperative Tests. is not only justifiable but preferable as a “practical and mean­ ingful index of the reliability of a test#11^

The standard

errors of measurement reported for the tests used in this study ranged from 3*0 to 5*0 at the level of the mean of the standardizing groups, that is, at the scaled-score point of 50 .0 . The Cooperative Tes t results are expressed in terms of scaled scores.

Scaled scores are an adaptation of T-

scores in which . . . a score average child lar course if had the usual grade .-^-L

of 50 represents the score which the would make at the end of the particu­ he had attended an average school and amount of instruction in the usual

Scaled scores are normalized scores in which the 50-point represents the mean achievement of the standardizing group, with each unit of the scale representing one-tenth of the standard deviation of the distribution of scores.

Because

the fundamental point of reference and the size of the units are similarly defined for all the Cooperative Tests. all of the tests are referred to a common scale which provides general comparability among tests in different subjects and thus facilitates comparison of performance in different fields. 12

This factor of a common scale made the

John G-ray Peatman, Descriptive and Sampling Sta­ tistics (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947), pp • 467-68. Flanagan, The Cooperative Tests, op. cit.. p. 9. Ibid., p. 19.

^

81 Use of the Cooperative Tests especially appropriate to the purposes of this study which had for one of its problems the comparison of retention in different subject-matter fields. The Cooperative Tests employed in this study included selected tests in the fields of mathematics, science, the languages, and h i s t o r y . A l l are recognition tests, using the five-item multiple-choice type of question, except in the case of plane geometry, in which.one part of the test is comprised of true-false items.

Separate answer sheets

are provided, and were used in this study for both the pre­ vacation and post-vacation testings. The Cooperative Algebra Test: Elementary Algebra Through Quadratics. Form T, consists of three parts designed to measure basic skills and principles, ability to interpret graphs and to manipulate formulas, and problem-solving abil­ ity.

The key provided by the publisher gives a table for

converting total raw scores to scaled scores, but no such equivalents are given for the part-tests.

Since one of the

purposes of this study was to compare the retention of skills measured by each of the part-tests, the raw scores obtained in each section were converted to T-scores.

In

this way, results on the three parts were comparable one with the other, being expressed in normalized standard scores based on the performance of the pupils participating in the study of retention of elementary algebra.

These T-scores

were not directly comparable to, although they were similar l ^ See Appendix A, pp. 265-277, for copies of the tests used in this investigation.

--i

82 r

to, the scaled scores on the total test.

The scaled scores

-i

of the total test are normalized scores based on the per­ formance of the groups on which the test was standardized; the T-scores of the part tests, normalized scores based on the performance of the pupils participating in the study. The Cooperative Intermediate Algebra Test. Form T, includes two parts, one of which emphasizes computational skills; the other, problem-solving ability.

A scale for

converting total raw scores to sealed scores is provided. As in the case of elementary algebra, the raw scores achieved on the part-tests were converted to T-scores for the purposes of the present investigation. The Cooperative Plane geometry Test. Form R, is com­ posed of three sections.

The first of these is a true-false

test of thirty geometric principles and concepts.

Parts II

and III, including problems of construction and logical reasoning, are to be scored as a unit.

In geometry as in

the case of elementary a n d .intermediate algebra, part-test raw scores were converted, to T-scores, observing, the same division as that of the prescribed scores; that is, the raw -scores of Part I were transmuted to T-scores, and the combined raw scores.of Parts II and III gave a second set of T-scores, a composite measure directly comparable to the scores derived from Part I. The Cooperative general Science Test. Form X, having for its object the measurement of basic informational Loutcornes of a typical science course, is intended for use

83 with groups of varying background in science courses.

It

n

includes some items beyond the ability of the first-year pupil just completing the elementary course in general science.

It was thought, however, that there were a suffi­

cient number of items, within the competency of the pupils participating in this part of the present study to justify the use of the test to investigate the retention of knowl­ edge of general science by first-year high-school pupils# The stated objectives of the Cooperative Biolo&y Test, Form X, and the Cooperative Chemistry Test. Form X, which in this study were administered at the second and third-year levels respectively, are to measure the fundamental facts and principles basic to an understanding of these sciences, and to emphasize the ability of the student to apply informa­ tion and to interpret typical materials in the light of his 14 information and understanding.. Experts appear to agree that the first purpose is well achieved, that the tests are good measures of factual information acquired in the courses in biology and chemistry, but that there is too little emphasis upon the second objective.^

Both tests, with a

preponderance of factual items, were considered to be good instruments for the purposes of this study. "im

Cooperative Achievement Tests, op. cit.. pp. 37-38*

Oscar Buros, Third Mental Me asu reme nt s Yearbook (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1948), pp. 1584-90. __________Nineteen Forty Mental Measurements Yearbook (Highland Park, N. J.: The Mental Measurements Yearbook, 1941), pp. 574-85*

84 r

Language tests used in the investigation, included the”1

Cooperat ive..Latin Test, Elementary Form R, the Cooperative Latin Test, Advanced Form R, the Cooperative Spanish Test, Elementary Form P, and the Cooperative French Test. Elemen­ tary Form R.

The elementary forms were administered to the

first-year students of these languages; the advanced form of the Latin test to pupils who had just completed the second year of Latin,

All language tests yielded four scores: that

derived from the first part of the test, which was concerned with translation; the score on the vocabulary test; that on the grammar section; and the score on the total test.

The

accompanying key provided separate scaled-score tables for each part-test and for the total test.

Thus it was possible

to compare directly the retention of different language abilities measured by the test, since the scaled scores pro­ vided the basis for such comparison.

Retention in first and

second-year Latin, in first-year Spanish, and in first-year French, therefore, in each case measured in terms of trans­ lation ability, vocabulary knowledge, knowledge of grammatical principles, and in terms of total scores. In the field of history, the Cooperative American History Test. Form T, was administered to third-year pupils, and the Cooperative World History Test. Form X, to firstyear pupils.

The tests emphasize both factual information

and ability to apply knowledge acquired in history courses. Although both tests are separated into parts, differences jin the nature of the abilities tested were not considered

85 r “i . sufficiently clear-cut to warrant treatment of part-scores*. Retention in tooth American history and in world history was measured, therefore, in terms of total scaled scores*. The Religion Tests

16

supplied to the high schools in

the diocese of Cleveland at the close of the school year 1947-4-8 constituted the measure of retention of knowledge of religion.

Based on the Quest for Happiness Series 17 and

constructed toy committees of teachers of the diocese-, these: first and second-year final examinations included essay and objective tests.. Only the objective portions were used to study retention.

These objective tests consisted of fifty

completion and fifty multiple-choice items,, and thus com­ bined the recognition and recall methods of measurement.

Raw

scores achieved on these tests were converted to T-scores, giving a normalized system similar to that employed in. other parts of the present investigation... When the Kuder-1/T

Richardson formula was applied to the test data,

the

coefficient of reliability of the first-year test was found to be *87 with a standard error of measurement of 4.5; that of the second test, .85 with a standard error of measure­ ment of 3*9. id See Appendix, pp. 278-79, for copies of these tests • . ^ Elwell, op. cit.. 1Q Dorothy Adkins, Construction and Analysis of Achievement Tests (Washington, D . C .: United States Civil Service Commission, G-overnment Printing Office, 1947), LPP. 153-55..

n

Intelligence quotients of the pupils participating in the present investigation were obtained from the Otis Self-Administering; Tests of Mental Ability, Higher Examina­ tion, Form A, which was administered--'in the cooperating schools in March and April, 1948.

The reported coefficient

of reliability of this test as determined by the alternateforms method is *92, with a probable error of 2.5» 1 9 III.

THE PROCEDURES

In December, 1947, the principals of the schools, which were to participate in this investigation were ap­ proached in order to explain the purpose of the proposed study and to enlist their cooperation.

Arrangements were

completed for the administration of the Cooperative Tests and the Cleveland Religion Tests in May, 1948, at the close of the current school year, for the repetition of the iden­ tical tests the following September,

immediately after the

summer vacation, and for the Otis Self-Administering Tests of Mental Ability to be given during the second semester prior to the other tests.

The different fields of subject

matter in v/hich retention was to be studied were allocated to the schools in such a way as to distribute the extra bur den imposed by the testing program.

The allocation of

subject-matter tests to the cooperating schools has been

19 Arthur S . Otis, Otis Se If -Adminis ter ing Tests of Mental Ability; Manual of Directions and Key (Yonkers-onLHudson, N.Y.: World Book Company, 1931), P* 12.

87 T

presented in Table I*

20

t

The Cooperative Tests were sent to the principals of the cooperating schools in April, 1948, in sealed parcels, each containing the requisite number of test booklets and separate answer sheets, directions for administration, 21 and a time card prepared for the particular test. 22

This

card, specifying the time allotment for each part test and for the whole test, required the teacher to make written notations of starting and stopping times for each section of the test. Interviews and correspondence with principals and te achers who were to give the tests served to clarify the purposes\of the investigation, to discuss testing proce\

dures,- and especially to stress the importance of strict adherence to testing conditions. The tests were administered by teachers under the supervision of their principals and of the investigator on flay 27, May 28, and June 1, 1948.

Test booklets were then

set aside in sealed packages for use in the September re­ testing.

Answer sheets were delivered to the investigator

by the cooperating schools as soon as possible after testing, and were separated according to subject-matter fields.

In

this way, all elementary algebra tests were handled at one See page 77* ^ Cooperative Test Service of the American Council on Education, Directions for Usinp; the Cooperative Tests (Hew York: Cooperative Test Service, 1940), 8 pp. ^

See Appendix B, p. 280, for samples of time cards-!

I "“I time, all intermediate algebra tests at another time, and so on.

The tests were scored by the investigator or by trained

workers under her direction, and*all scores were carefully rechecked by the investigator. The Religion Tests were supplied to Holy Name School by the diocesan school board just before the date of test­ ing.

They were- scored by the teachers, and' then sent to

the investigator for rechecking. During the summer, duplicate sets of separate answer sheets were sent to the cooperating schools.

During the

first three days of the fall session, on September

-11, 12,

and 13, 1948, the identical tests were repeated at the same time of day and in the same order that had been observed in the May administration of the tests.

The answer sheets were

returned to the investigator immediately.

Again, scoring

was done by the investigator with the help of trained as­ sistants, and scores were carefully rechecked. Intelligence quotients of all high-school pupils participating in the study were obtained prior to the prevacation testing, by the administration of the Otis Self Administering Tests of Mental Ability in March and April, 1948. Record, sheets were prepared for each of the fourteen high-school subjects in which retention was being studied, and for the different phases of mathematics and languages which had been made the objects of separate study, such as Lcomputational skills and problem--solving ability in algebra^

89 r U and vocabulary, translation, and grammar in the languages. Pre-vacation scores, post-vacation scores, and intelligence quotients of each student were recorded, and constituted the data to -which statistical techniques were applied. In summary, the testing procedures of this investi­ gation included the following: 1.

Administration of' the subject-matter tests at*

the close of the school year 1947-48, on May 277 ^ 7

28,

and June 1, 1948. 2.

Repetition of the identical tests at the begin­

ning of the school year 1948-49, immediately after the summer vacation period and prior to further formal instruc­ tion. 3*

Administration of the Qtis Self-Administering

Tests of Mental Ability in March and April, 1948, to ob­ tain the intelligence quotients of the pupils participating in the study. IV.

THE STATISTICAL* PROCEDURES

Statistical treatment of the data in the present investigation included the following: 1.

Determination of the coefficient of reliability

of the unstandardized.'objective tests in first and secondyear religion employed in this study; 2.

Conversion to T-scores of the first and second-

year religion raw scores, and of the raw scores on the Lpart-tests of the Cooperative Tests in elementary algebra, _j

90 r

~1

intermediate algebra, and plane geometry; 3* -Computation of the means on each pre-vacation

and post-vacation test, and of the mean differences between the two applications of each test; 4*

Determination of the significance of the ob­

tained mean differences by computing the standard error of the mean differences and applying the critical ratio tech­ nique ; 5* ,Separation of the total data in each subject and part-subject studied into above and below-median-score groups, into above-median-IQ and be low-median-IQ groups, into groups composed of boys and of girls, and into the interquartile range as distinguished from the total mass of scores; determination of the reliability of the mean differ­ ences between pre-vacation and post-vaeation means for each of the-groups so obtained. 6.

Construction of tables summarizing retention as

measured in each subject and part-subject for the different groups into which the total distributions were divided, and for the total groups. 1. tests. - r+ = - *

The coefficient of reliability of the religion

The Kuder-Richardson formula,^ n “n - 1

~

Mt (n - M-t) n o2t .

was applied to the data obtained from the tests.

L

Adkins, op. cit., p. 154.

This

J

91 rmethod was used "because it requires only one administration1 of a test, and is uncomplicated by the disadvantages of the split-half method.

It tends to underestimate the reliabil-

ity and therefore eliminates the danger of attributing to a test a greater degree of reliability than it actually -possesses.24 Conversion of raw scores to T-scores.

The scores

on the first and second-year religion tests and on the parttests of the Cooperative Tests in elementary algebra, plane geometry, and intermediate algebra were converted to T-scores

pg

by use of the McCall T-scales ° as presented by Walker. 3*

26

Computation of the means and mean differences.

Pre-vacation and post-vacation means of each test were de­ termined directly from the ungrouped data by use of a Monroe calculator. 4.

Reliability of obtained mean differences.

the present investigation, the same tests were administered to the same group on two separate occasions.

It was there­

fore necessary to obtain the standard error of difference between correlated means, that is, to use the paired-group method.

There were available two ways of determining this

measure of reliability.

One of these requires the coeffi-

24 rbia.. pp. 153-56.

William A. McCall, Measurement (New York: Macmillan Company, 1939), pp. 493-508. p

Helen M. Walker, Elementary Statistical Method (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1943), pp^ 190-3* L

-J

In

cient of correlation between scores on the initial and final tests, and the standard errors of the means of the two tests

=

| e2Kl - e2M2

2r12cMi°M2

The second formula makes it possible to use ungrouped data directly, and to eliminate the computation of the coefficient of correlation: 28

z:d2 -

LSSiir-,.

_________- I - ______

,

N(N - 1)

where D on the right side of the equation represents the p difference between each pair of scores, D the square of the difference between each pair of scores, 2 D and IS D the summation of these values in a given series of scores, and N the number of scores.

This second method was em­

ployed throughout the study, making it possible to perform all computations directly from the ungrouped data by means of a Monroe calculator. 5.

Separation of data obtained in each subject.

order to determine the comparative retention of those who knew more before the summer vacation and those who knew less, of the more intelligent and the less intelligent, of boys and of girls, and of the middle 50 per cent of each group as compared with the total group, total scores in each school subject and part-subject in which retention G-arrett, op..cit.. p. 209. L

p8

*

McNemar, op. cit., pp. 224-26.

In

93 r was studied were separated.as follows: a.

“*

Median scores on the pre-vacation tests were de­

termined, and the scoresabove and below v.’the median treated separately, to obtain the reliability of the mean differ­ ences for the above-median-score and below-median-score groups. b.

Median intelligence quotients of t'he total groups

in each subject and part-subject were determined.

The

above-median-IQ and below-median-IQ groups were then sepa­ rately treated, to obtain the reliability of the mean differences for the above-median-IQ and below-median-IQ groups• c.

Similar procedures were followed with the scores

of boys and of girls in each test and part-test. d~.

The first and third quartile points were deter­

mined, and the scores between them treated to obtain the reliability of the mean differences for the interquartile group in each test and part-test. 6.

Construction of tables. Finally, results

derived from each test were assembled into tables in such a way that each table dealt with one aspect of retention under investigation, such as elementary algebraic problem­ solving ability, first-year Latin vocabulary, first-year Spanish translation ability, and so on.

The different

problems of the present investigation were included in each table, as it presented findings for the total group f students, for the above-median-score and be low-median-

_i

94 r

score groups, the above-median-IQ and helow-median-IQ

~i

groups, hoys and girls, and for the interquartile group in each subject and ^art-subject in which retention was studied.

Summary tables were presented in the different

subject-matter areas in order to give comparative retention of the different branches of mathematics, science, languages, history, and religion.

The data were finally assembled so

as to give the findings for the total groups in each school subject and part-subject, thus presenting in summary and concise form the results obtained in- seeking answers to the problems involved in this study.

L

r

■*1

CHAPTER I W ANALYSIS OP RESULTS In this chapter are presented the results of the statistical analysis of the data obtained from the pre-vaca­ tion and post-vacation tests administered for the purpose of determining the retention of learning over the summer inter­ val by high-school pupils.

The results have been organized

and presented in terms of the areas in which retention was studied: mathematics, including elementary algebra, interme­ diate algebra, and plane geometry; science, including general science, biology, and chemistry; language, includ­ ing first-year Latin, second-year Latin, first-year Spanish, and first-year French; history, including world history and American history; religion, including first and second-year religion.

In mathematics and languages, retention of the

various subjects was considered in terms of total tests and of part-tests of skills within each subject; in these areas, therefore, retention data have been presented in terms of total knowledge and in terms of different types of knowl­ edge retained, as measured by the selected tests within the given subject-matter areas. Total distributions of test scores in each case were separated into above^* and below-median-IQ groups, aboveand below-median-score groups, boys and girls, and inter­ quartile group, in order to fulfill the purposes of the

-1

965

r" investigation*

Data for each of these groups in each test

“i

and part-test were treated separately. The analysis of the results of the present study has been presented in this chapter in six divisions, designated by the following headings:

the retention of mathematics

over

the summer vacation period;

the retention of science

over

the summer vacation period;

the retention of languages

over

the summer vacation period; the retention of history

over

the summer vacation period; the retention of religion

over-the summer vacation period; and the comparative reten­ tion of high-school subject matter over the summer vacation, period, I.

RETENTION OF MATHEMATICS 0¥ER THE SUMMER VACATION PERIOD

Included in this section of the analysis of the data are the results obtained from the investigation of retention of first-year algebra, intermediate algebra, and plane geom­ etry,

In each of these subjects, results were obtained in

terms of total test scores as expressed by the sealed scores of the Cooperative Tests.^

Retention of total

measured ability in each of the three areas could thus be directly compared, since scaled scores make such comparisons possible.

p

Because one of the purposes of the investigation

**" See Chapter III, pp. 80-81, for a description of scaled scores. ^ John C . Flanagan, The Cooperative Achievement gFests : A Bulletin Reportinp; the Basic Princ iples and Proce- _j dures in the Development of Their System of Scaled Scores (New York: Cooperative Test Service, 1939*17 P* 19.

97 r

-j was to compare degrees of retention between different t^pes of knowledge, the scores on the parts of each test measur­ ing different mathematical skills were treated separately. Since the Cooperative Tests did not supply scaled-score derivatives for the part-test scores, these values were converted to T-scores before subjecting them to statistical treatment.

Thus, retention of the various skills

within a subject, such as computational ability, problem­ solving ability, and facility in the handling of equations, is represented in each case in the following analysis of results in terms of T-scores; total retention in each subject, in terms of the Cooperative- scaled scores. A.. Retention of Elementary Algebra over the Summer Vacation Period -Two hundred sixty-three pupils in the first year of high school comprised the subjects for the study of reten­ tion of elementary algebra over the summer vacation.period. Data were obtained from the Cooperative Elementary Algebra A Test. Form T, administered at the close of the school year immediately before the summer vacation and again the follow­ ing September, before formal class work was renewed.

Total

scores thus obtained were analyzed, and the scores on the part-tests subjected to separate treatment in order to dis­ cover the retention of computational skills, ability to 3 See pp. 81-82, and p. 91, for discussion of Tscores• j

-

%

See pp. 8 I-83 for a description of the Cooperative Elementary Algebra Test.

-1

98 rmanipulate formulas and to interpret graphs, and problemsolving ability. Retention of elementary algebra as me a sure d by total scores.

In Table II are presented the data concerning the

retention of elementary algebra over the summer vacation period as measured by the total scores on the Cooperative Elementary Algebra Test, Form T, for the entire group of first-year algebra pupils, and for the various groups into which they were divided for purposes of comparison. An examination of Table II indicates that the 263 pupils tested in May achieved an initial mean score of 44.6; on the September retest their average was 42.6,

For the

mean difference of 2.0 sustained over the summer vacation interval the standard error was found to be 0.39.

This

loss was highly significant statistically, as was indicated by the large critical ratio of 5.10.

These results are

similar to the findings of Sister Florence Louise,

who

found an average loss in algebraic ability over the summer vacation period amounting to 7»1 per cent of pre-vacation ability, and to those of Layton,^ who discovered a decrease of 15.1 per cent over a one-year interval.

In another

^ Sister M. Florence Louise Lahey, 11Permanence of Retention of First-Year Algebra,11 Journal of Educational Psychology. 32:401-13, September, 1941. 6 Edna Thompson Layton, r,The Persistence of Learning in Elementary Algebra,” Journal of Educational Psychology. 23*46-55, January, 1932.

99 r study of retention of elementary algebra, White^ reported n larger losses over a five-month period, amounting to 32.8 per cent of the pre-vacation scores.

Although the

TABLE II RETENTION OF ELEMENTARY ALGEBRA OVER THE SUMMER VACATION PERIOD: TOTAL SCORES

Mng Significance level

1*42 Ul.l >#>.5

193 53. ^ 51. **

- 0.6

0

Mn^ Mn^^Mag Significance level

176 53.7

70 4l.6

97 52.0

52.2 •1*5

39.2

50.0

-2.4

-

Mn^ Mng

107.0

108.0

96 54.4

88 58*1

-0.7

—0.3

54.1

56.5

—x.6

9 9 .0 71 3 6 .3 35.7 -0 . 6

%

L.

5^.3 5 2 .3 -

2.0

42.0 71 50.5 48.2

5 1 .0 96 6 2 .3

56.5 -5.8

1$

54.0 88 60.7 57*8 -2.9

49 47.2 45.2 —2.0 • • •

1 0 7 .0 96 5 2 .5 48.8 -3.7

1 0 8 .0 88 49.2 47.6 —1.4

1$

Below Median

Score

42.0 71

5 1 .0 96

31.6

44.5 46.3

54.0 88 46.6 46.5

A* 8

**0.1

3 2 .6

A.0

1$> Boys

N Mnl Mng Mnj*Mng Significance 1 evel

2.0

88

Below Median IQ,

99.0 71 45.9 45.2

-2.3 Significence level

CHEM,

1*

Above Median Score Md Score N

BIOL.

Interquartile Group

Above Median IQ,

Md 1% N

GEN. SC.

32 63.3 5 6 .8 -6 ,5 1$

Girls 80 52.4 5 1 .0 -0.7 • • •

93 37.8 37.9 A.o V • •

161 5 1 .^ 5 0 .3 -1.1

5#

96 5 M 5 2 .6 —2.1 • • •

147 r

by the median intelligence quotients of 107 and 108 respec­ tively, was greater than the capacity of the general science group with a median intelligence quotient of 99.

It is

probable that the personnel of the upper classes in science tended more toward college-preparatory pupils, with greater motivation to achieve well in these subjects.

Despite the

lower level of scores, however, the retention of the gener­ al science pupils was greater than that,of their higherscoring elders: only for the interquartile group and for the above-median-score group were there significant losses. This tendency toward retention in general science accompanying the pattern of general low'achievement in the subject would seem to indicate a trend for those who knew the least to retain their small store of knowledge. ’ The below-median-score group in chemistry displayed a statisti­ cally non-significant loss which would seem to point in the same direction; a similar tendency was evident for the below-median-score groups, that is, the *low-scoring pupils, in the various branches of mathematics.

The below-median-

score group in general science displayed a gain of 1.0 over the summer vacation, but this improvement could be accounted for by chance factors, since it represented a non-significant gain.

For the parallel group in biology, however, the in­

crease in average over -the delay interval, 1.8, represented a real difference, since it was significant at the 1 per cent level.

It would seem that the information acquired by

^this group,- possibly by reading and the experiences of the _j

148 r~ ~i summer, tended to add to the knowledge they possessed prior to the vacation period. For those who knew more science in the pre-vacation measurement, the above-median-score groups, whether in gen­ eral science, biology, or chemistry, there were losses over the summer interval ranging from 2.3 to 5.8, all of them significant.

In sciences as in mathematics, therefore,

those who knew the most forgot the most, but despite their summer-time loss, still maintained in September higher averages than those achieved by the other groups. The more intelligent, as measured by their positions above the median intelligence quotients of the three distri­ butions, tended to forget less than the above-median-score groups.

In general science and in biology the losses of

these higher-IQ groups were not significant; in chemistry there was a decrease significant at the 5 per cent, but not at the 1 per cent level.

In all three sciences, therefore,

there was good retention of information acquired in the science courses as measured by the Cooperative Tests, and in biology and chemistry both initial and retest mean scores showed a high degree of achievement.

The less in­

telligent sustained a comparatively large and significant loss in biology; for the parallel groups in general science and chemistry the losses were small and attributable to chance.

There was no consistent pattern for these below-

median- IQ groups, therefore, in the three sciences in ^which retention was investigated.

^

149 r

The hoys in these- three groups .displayed rather wide"1

differences between retention of general science and chem­ istry, and great divergence between retention of general science and biology; in the latter case, the loss of 6.5 in biology was significant; in the other two subjects, the differences were attributable to chance.

The loss of 2.1

for the girls in chemistry was significant; their loss in biology was not significant at the 1 per cent level, al­ though it was so at the 5 per cent level.

For the girls,

as for the boys, there was a high degree of retention In general science; the gain of 1.0 sustained by the girls was not significant,

It is evident that there were found no

consistent trends that would indicate differences in re­ tention of boys and of girls. In general, therefore, it can be stated that, al­ though there were sustained real losses in knowledge of science as measured by the Cooperative Tests used in this investigation, the losses, where they occurred, were small, ranging from 0.6 to 2.0 for the total enrollments in gen­ eral science, biology, and chemistry.

Although certain

groups sustained greater losses, especially in biology, these students with larger vacation-period decreases dis­ played high average achievement after the summer vacation period.

Therefore, for the subjects of the present in­

vestigation, the retention of knowledge of science as measured by the recognition method was high. l

-J

150 r

1IIU. RETENTION OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES OVER THE

SUMMER VACATION PERIOD' In, this section of the analysis of the data are pre­ sented the results obtained in studying the retention of first-year Latin, second-year Latin, firstryear French,,and first-year Spanish, as measured by the Cooperative Achieve­ ment Tests administered before and after the summer vaca­ tion period.

The Cooperative Tests in languages actually

constitute three separate tests each, in reading or trans­ lation ability, in vocabulary, and in grammar,,for which they yield three separate scaled scores plus a composite score.. This factor obviated the necessity of analyzing total raw scores into part scores, as had been required in the section of the study devoted to the retention of math­ ematics, where it had been desired to compare the amount of retention of various mathematical skills.

Since the sep­

arate parts of the Cooperative Language Tests are expressed in,terms of scaled-score units, results achieved on the various parts and on the total tests are comparable within a given language and between the different languages in which such tests are available, a fact which made, the use of these tests helpful in this study of retention.. Results obtained in this study are reported in this section of the analysis of data in the order in which the skills were measured by the tests,.namely, in terms of translation, vocabulary, and grammar,.and finally in terms upf total scores, for each of the four languages..

-1

A.

Retention of Elementary Latin over the Bummer Interval The subjects for this part of the investigation con­

sisted of 203 first-year pupils for whom degree of retention was determined in Latin translation, vocabulary, grammar, and in terms of total achievement, as measured by the Cooperative Elementary Latin Test« Form R. Retention of first-year Latin translation ability.

In

Table XVII are presented the data covering the retention of ability to read, that is, to translate, Latin for the total group of 203 high-school freshmen, and for the various groups into which they were divided for purposes of comparison. An examination of the table indicates that for the entire group of first-year pupils, the decline of 1.3 from the pre-vacation mean score of 46.4 to a post-vacation av­ erage of 45.1 was significant at. the 5 per cent, but not at the 1 per eent level. The more intelligent, as measured by their rank above the median intelligence quotient of 105.4, sustained a mean summer-time loss of 1.8 after a pre-vacation mean score of 49.8, a difference which was significant at the 5 per cent level.

The decrease of 0.6 sustained by the be-

low-median-IQ group was not significant. The largest vacation-period loss in first-year Latin translation was sustained by the above-median-score group, for' whom the difference of 4.3 was highly significant, as HLas indicated by the large critical ratio of 6.33-

Despite -1

152 TABLE XVII RETENTION OF ELEMENTARY LATIN OVER THE SUMMER VACATION PERIOD: TRANSLATION

Mnx~Mn2

0D

C .R.

Signifi­ cant at 5% 1%

45.1

-1.3

0.55

2.24

■»

49.8

48.0

-1.8

0.71

2.51

&

101

42.9

42.3

-0.6

0.83

0.79

Above median score (48.0) Below median. score

101

53.9

49.6

-4.3

0.69

6.33

101

38.9

40.7

/1.8

0.73

2.46

Interquartile range (40.1-51.0)

101

47.3

44.8

-2.5

0.60

4.16

40

43.5

-1.6

1.48

1.09

163

47.1

41.9 46.0

-1.1

0.57

1.95

N

Mnj.

Mn2

203

46.4

Above median IQ(105.4) Below median IQ

101

Entire group

Boys G-irls



this comparatively large loss, the post-vacation average of this group was higher than that of the other groups.

The

"below-median-score pupils displayed an increase from 38.9 to 40.7, the positive difference of 1.8 "being significant at the 5 per cent level.

The interquartile group achieved a

pre-vacation average in excess of that of the entire body of students, 47.3 as compared to 46.4, but the larger summer­ time loss of the middle 50 per cent caused them to rank very slightly below the total group in post-vacation mean score; the interquartile-group loss of 2.5 was significant. L

The boys, with pre-vacation and post-vacation mean ’

-J

153 r

—|

scores lower than those of the girls, sustained a non-signif­ icant summer-interval decrease of 1.6.

For the girls, the

decline of 1.1 from the pre-vacation mean of 47*1 was sig­ nificant at the 5 per cent level. In summary, there were found losses ranging from 0.6 to 4.3 in translation ability sustained by these fxrst-year students of Latin.

For two groups, the above-median-score

and the interquartile pupils, these losses were significant at the 1 per cent level; for the lowest-scoring groups there were non-significant losses on the part of the belowmedian-IQ group and for the boys, and a somewhat significant gain on the part of the below-median-score group.

For the

other categories, vacation-period mean decreases in trans­ lation scores were significant at the 5 per cent, but not at the 1 per cent level.

In general, therefore, it can be

stated that there was found for these pupils a good degree of retention in first-year translation ability. Retention of f irst-year Latin vocabulary over the summer vacation period.

In Table XVIII are presented the

data for the retention of first-year Latin vocabulary over the vacation interval. An examination of Table XVIII indicates that the entire~body of 203 first-year pupils suffered a summerinterval loss of 0.8 after a pre-vacation.mean score of 43-9, the difference being significant at the 5 per cent level. l

_j

154 TABLE XVIII .RETENTION OF ELEMENTARY LATIN OVER THE SUMMER VAC ATION PERIOD: VOCABULARY Signifi­ cant at 5% 1fo it

N’

Mn;!

Mng

203

43.9

43.1

-0.8

0.3 6

2.21

101

46.4

45.2

—1.2

0.59

1.93

101

41.5

41.1

-0.4

0.41

1.00

Above median score(44.0) Below median, score

101

49.8

46.9

-2.9

0.45

6.30

101

38.0

39.3

/1-3

0.47

2.74

it

Interquartile range (40.1-48.0)

101

44.0

43.1

-1.1

0.43

2.43

it

40

40.8 44.7

/0.3 -1.1

0.93 0.38

0.27

163

41.1 43.6

Entire group Above median IQ(105.4) Below median IQ

Boys .Girls

Mn^-IIng

C .R.

2.75

it

"it

"it

it

The more intelligent, as measured by their rank above the median intelligence quotient, 105.4, displayed a tendency to retain their knowledge of word meanings over the vacation period, the loss of 1.2 representing a non-significant mean difference.

The same situation prevailed with the be low-

median-IQ pupils, for whom the mean difference of 0.4 represented a non-significant loss. In vocabulary, as in translation, the largest summer­ time loss was sustained by those who knew the most before the delay-interval: the above-median-score group displayed a difference of 2.9 which was highly significant, as was

155 P" evident from the large critical ratio of 6.30.

As in the

“i

case of Latin translation, the helow-median-score pupils showed a gain over the summer interval, the difference of 1.3 representing a gain significant at the 1 per cent level. Pre-vacation and post-vacation mean scores of the interquar­ tile group were almost identical with those of the entire body of students, with the loss of 1.1 of this middle group significant at the 5 per cent level. The hoys, with a pre-vacation mean scores of 40.8, tended to retain their knowledge of word meanings; the slight increase of 0.3 displayed hy them could he attrib­ uted to chance.

For the girls, however, the decrease from



44.7 to 43.6 was significant at the 1 per cent level. The relatively low vacation-period losses in vocabu­ lary sustained hy the total group of these first-year Latin students are similar to the summer-time decreases found hy Sister Miriam de Lourdes 44 in a study of retention of Latin vocabulary by first and second-year pupils.

When

measured by a recall test consisting of words drawn from the Regents 1 examinations, the subjects in this investiga­ t o r s study were found to have sustained an~ average decrease of 7 per cent in knowledge- of Latin vocabulary over the va­ cation period.

While the findings of the present study

indicate a quantitatively higher amount of retention, the ^ Sister Miriam de Lourdes McMahon, 11The Effects of Summer Vacation on the Retention of Latin Vocabulary,11 (unpublished Master’s thesis, Fordham University, New. Jork, 1946), 107 P P *

156 'fact that Sister Miriam de Lourdes employed the recall type"1 of measurement probably accounts for the apparent discrep-’ ancy in the results of the two investigations.^

Her find­

ings for the total body of pupils participating in her study and the results of the present investigation agree in point­ ing to a high degree of retention of Latin vocabulary over the summer vacation period.

Another study in the retention 46 of Latin, however, conducted by Anderson and Jordan, dis­ covered a large amount of loss in Latin word knowledge over delay intervals ranging from*. one day to several weeks.

The

pupils taught by these investigators, however, learned the vocabularies without any application of the words in trans­ lation or in sentence construction, and without any other learning of Latin.

Under these conditions, the situation

probably more nearly resembled the rote memorization of non­ sense syllables, and the results were scarcely representa­ tive of school learning as acquired in the ordinary school situation; for these reasons the results cannot be compared directly with the findings of the present investigation* With reference;to the retention of Latin vocabulary as found in the present investigation, in summary, there was displayed7by the total group of first-year pupils and

^

See pages 6-7.

^ J. P. Anderson and Ai M. Jordan, "Learning and Retention of Latin Words and Phrases,11 Journal of Educational Psychology, 19s485-96, October, 1928. L

157 r by!::most of the groups into which they were divided' a high

~i

degree of retention, with losses ranging from 0*4 to 1*2 repre-senting non-significant differences or differences . significant at the 5 per cent level only.

For the above-

median-score group and for the girls, however, the losses were significant.

The lowest-scoring pupils displayed a

real improvement over the summer interval* Retention of knowledge of f irst-year Latin grammar * In Table XIX are presented the data concerning the retention of knowledge of Latin grammatical principles, as measured by the Cooperative Test in elementary Latin. An examination of Table XIX reveals highly signifi­ cant losses for the total body of 205 first-year students, and for most of the groups into which they were divided. For the entire group, for the above-median-IQ, above-medianscore, and interquartile groups, and for the girls, the extremely high critical ratios are indicative of the highly significant differences between the pre-vacation and post­ vacation mean scores.

Of these losses, the largest was

sustained by those who had ranked-highest in the initial test, the above-median-score pupils with mean decreases from 5 4 .7 :to 48*7.. The above-median-IQ pupils also dis­ played large losses, their averages decreasing from 52.1 to 48*1.

The losses of the interquartile group were like­

wise high: the pre-vacation‘mean of this group was very nearly equal to ths,t of the total group, but the summer-

158 “i

time loss was greater. TABLE XIX RETENTION OF ELEMENTARY LATIN OVER THE SUMMER VACATION PERIOD: GRAMMAR

C .R.

Signifi­ cant at 5% 1%

0.48

5.69

-)f

•if

-4.0

0.60

6.70

•if

■if

44.3

-1.5

0.74

1.96

#

54.7

48.7

-6 .0

0.46 12.90

101

43.7

44.2

/ 0.5

0.73

0.66

101

48.5

44.6

-3.9

0.64

6 .02

•if

•if

40

44.9 49.9

44.9 46.5

-0.0 -3.4

• ••

•• • 5.70

•if

•if

N

Mnq

Mn2

203

49.0

46.2

-2.8

101

52.1

48.1

101

45.8

Above median score(49.2) Below median, score

101

Interquartile range (49.0-54.1)

Entire group Above median IQ(105.4) Below median IQ

Boys Girls

163

Mn^-Mn2

0.59

•if

Pupils below the median intelligence quotient sustained a loss of 1.5, significant at the 5 per cent level.

Those in

the below-median-score group tended to remember after the vacation the principles of Latin grammar they knew on the pre-vacation test, their mean increase of 0.5 representing a non-significant gain. The highly significant and in some cases comparative­ ly large vacation-period losses displayed by the first-year pupils who constituted the subjects of this part of the L

-J

159 r 47 n investigation: are in accord with the findings of Kennedy, who found significant losses ranging from 15 per cent to 34- per cent over the summer vacation interval by various first and second-year Latin groups, as measured by the rec­ ognition items of the Pressey Latin Syntax Test. With reference to the data concerning the retention of knowledge of grammar obtained in the present study, the mean losses sustained by these first-year pupils over the vacation interval were greater than those experienced in translation or in vocabulary.

It is possible that rote,

rather than logical memory, functioned to a.greater extent in the retention of grammatical knowledge*

One result of

the forgetting which characterized the Latin grammar was the considerable reduction in range of scores:

in the pre­

vacation, test in May, the mean scores of the various groups extended from 4-3*7 to 54.7, & range of 1 1 .0 , whereas in the September retest there was found a range of 4*5, from 44.2 to 48*7*

In Latin grammar, therefore, the summer-time

losses tended to level off the wide differences between the various groups into which the subjects were divided. Retention of elementary Latin in terms of total scores. When the separate scores in translation, vocabulary, and ^ Leo R. Kennedy, "The Retention of Certain Latin Syntactical Principles by First and Second Year Latin Stu­ dents after Various Time Inte-rvals,11 dournal of Educational Psychology. 23:132-46, February, 1932.

u

-i

160

— ~I grammar were combined to give total scaled scores in firstyear Latin,, significant losses were found for most of the groups.

In Table XX are presented the data obtained for

the retention of first-year Latin over the summer vacation period in terms of total scores# TABLE XX RETENTION OF ELEMENTARY LATIN OVER THE SUMMER VACATION PERIOD: TOTAL SCORES

Above median IQ(105.4) Below median IQ Above median score(46.0) Below median. score Interquartile range' (40.1-50.2) Boys Girls

Mng

CM

Entire group

Mnx.

i

N

+2 101 >*2.3 >*>*.7 >*>*.5 >*3 . 5 —1.2 •/2.2

101 28.5 26.2 -2*3

5#

5$

1 0 5 .U 101 >*9.2 U6.6 -.2. 6

1#

110 47 51.0 50.3 -0.7

io4 50 31.9 2 9 .4 -2.4

%

108 21 »3.3 >*6 . 7 43.3

46*0 101 51.5 47.4 -4.1 1;$

47 49.2 49.6 «/0.4 9 m m

1 0 5 .>* 1 1 0 101 47 47.8 >*0.9 48.2 Ul.O */o.4 •/O.l • •

S

i40 41.5 4i.i -0.4

>*8.0 >*7 53. >* 51.2 -2 . 2

28.3 50 35.1 30*3 -4.8

>*1.0 21 >*8.9 >*8 .7 —0. 2

1*

1*

1*

• • *

0 9 9 • 99 9 9 0 • 99

9 9 9

21 41.9 44.2 «/2.3

1$

556

%

9 9 9

108 21 Ul.O U2.2 •/1.2 9 0 0

Score

4r.5

>*8.0 >+7 >*>*.3 U6 . 2 A .9

28.3 50 22,0 22.1 */o.1

4i.o 21 35.7 40.3 ^4.6

1%

1*

9 9 9

1$

46,0 101 38.7 MO. 2

Girls

Boys N Mn-> Mn2 Mn^-Mng Significance level

51 27.4 24.8 -2.6

104 50 2 5 .2 2 3 .O —2. 2

Below Median

Above Median Score Md Score N M ni Mn2 Mn^-Mnp Significance level

PR. I

Below Median IQ

1%

• 99

SPAN.I

Interquartile Group

Above Median 3Q Md IQ, N Mn^ Mnp Mn-^—Mn~ Significance level

LAT. II

55 2 5 .9 2>*.3 *"X. 6

555

9 9 9 9 •

9

9 9 9



90

9 9 9

I63 46.o 44.5 -1.5







9 9 9 9 9 9



99



99

48 33-8 30.1 -3.7 ljt

• • • •

• 9

9 9 9 9 9 9

9 9 9

-----

199

r

groups.

Again, increases characterized both categories in

-i

French; the gains were significant at the 5 per cent level. The more intelligent sustained significant losses in first-year Latin and in Spanish; in second-year Latin the differences in terms of total scores were negligible. After their summer-time forgetting, these three groups ranking above the median intelligence quotients tended to rate relatively high with reference to the other groups, as did the above-median-score groups.

These latter, how­

ever, sustained large losses significant at the 1 per cent leve1' The less intelligent tended to retain their initial averages on the post-vacation test in first and secondyear Latin and in French; in Spanish, this group lost sig­ nificantly.

The below-median-score groups displayed

significant gains in Latin and in French, and a tendency toward retention in Spanish.

Here again, significant and -

comparatively high mean losses sustained by -those scoring highest in the pre-vacation tests, therefore, did not change their rankings with reference to the other groups, and-again those who had ranked lowest on the pre-vacation •N

tests retained those positions despite -vacation-period in­ creases • Total-score data for boys and for girls were avail­ able only in Latin I and in Spanish I.

Both boys and girls

lost in Spanish; boys displayed a tendency toward retention of Latin I; girls, a significant loss, despite which their^

200 r

post-vacation scores were higher than those of the hoys.

“i

Thus, no definite similarities or differences were found to establish separate patterns of retention for boys and for girls. In summary, it can be stated that, although some , forgetting occured in the total groups in Latin I, Latin II, and Spanish I, in terms of total-score retention as measured by the Cooperative Tests, and although the mean losses sustained over the vacation period were significant, the summer-time losses in these three languages were rela­ tively small.

Since subsequent success in these subjects

is dependent upon knowledge already attained, however, it would seem that some review would be indicated after the , summer interval.

Since there appeared to be no consistency

with regard to the particular phase of the languages in which the vacation-period losses occurred -- grammar, translation, or vocabulary -- it would seem advisable to determine at the outset of the ‘new term in which of these elements summer-time forgetting has occurred, in order to make the review as efficient and economical as possible. In the case of the findings concerning the retention of French in the present study, there appeared to be a high degree of retention.

However, the number of cases avail­

able precluded any general conclusions concerning the retention of French during the summer vacation period.

L

IV. RETENTION OF HISTORY OVER THE SUMMER VACATION PERIOD In studying the retention of history over the summer vacation period, two groups of students constituted the subjects: 154- first and second-vear pupils partici­ pated in the section of the study devoted to the retention of world history; 152 third-year pupils, in the section concerned with the retention of American history.

Only

total scores were dealt with in the study of retention of history• A.

Retention of World History over the Summer Interval In Table XXXVII are summarized the data concerning

the retention of world history by the 154- first and secondyear pupils to whom was administered the Cooperative World History Test. Form X> before and after the summer vacation period• An inspection of Table XXXVII reveals that the mean losses sustained by the total group of pupils over the summer interval, amounting to 1.5, represented a sig­ nificant decrease. The more intelligent, as measured by their rating above the median intelligence quotient of 107.5, dis­ played a tendency to retain their pre-vacation knowledge of history; the vacation-period loss of 0.8 for this group represented a non-significant difference.

For the lower-

scoring below-median-IQ pupils, the mean loss of 2.2

,

202

r constituted a significant decline from the initial average1 of 37.3. TABLE XXXVII RETENTION OF WORLD HISTORY OVER THE * SUMMER VACATION PERIOD

N Entire group

154

Mn!

Mn2

Mni-Mn2

Mni*44n2 Significance level

38.1 -2.3*

76 1)6.9 1)5.u -1.5

1*

5#

78

Below Median IQ,

107*5 77 U3 .0 1)2 . 2 -0 . 8

1 0 5 .6 76 51.1 50.2 -0.9

•••

•©•

Above Median Score Md Score N Mn^ Mn 2 Mn^ Mn ^ S ignificance level

Significance level

Below Median Score

^7.0 76 55.6 52. 2 - 2 .S

1)0 . 6 77 3^.1 3*).6 /0 . 6

1#

5$

*••

L.

l;%

•e#

1*

*10.6 77 H6 .S ^3.1 -3.2

102 Hl.O 39.1 -1.9

1 0 5 .6 76 1)5.2 1)3.S -1.3

107.5 77 37.8 35.6 « 2»2

Boys

N* Mnx Mn2

AMER. HIS.

Interquartile Croup 152 HS.l ^7.0 -1 .1

38.9 -1.5

WORLD HIS.

1)7.0 76 1)0.7 1)1 . 8 -0.5 ’ ••• Girls

52 U7 .S U6 . 2 -1 . 6

52 39. ^ 38.5 -0.9

100 1)8.3 !)7.5 —0 .8

5#.

a•*

•••

208 r~

cant.

In spite of their losses, these two groups retained

"i

their relative position of superiority in the post-vacation mean scores.

The below-median-sc or e groups followed the

pattern established in previous sections of this study for these low-scoring pupils: mean differences between the pre­ vacation and post-vacation averages were slight and non-sig­ nificant, and after'the vacation period they continued to rank lower than the other groups. The boys lost significantly in both subjects; the girls experienced non-significant summer-time decreases in both cases. In summary, it can be stated that the losses in his­ tory, although significant for some groups, were on the whole considerably smaller than those sustained in other subjects, and for some of the groups there appeared to be little, if any, forgetting, as measured by the mean differences on the tests used.

It would seem, therefore, that for these pupils

there was a high degree of retention of American and world history over the summer vacation period. V.

RETENTION OF RELIG-ION OVER THE SUMMER VACATION PERIOD Data for the retention of knowledge of religion acquired

during the first and second year of high school were obtained from tests administered to the pupils in the high schools of Cleveland.*51 These tests, constructed by committees of_teachers

u

See page 85•

_i

209 From the various schools of the diocese, were based on the _Quest for Happiness Series,

the religion textbooks which

constitute the basis of the religion courses in the Catho­ lic schools of Cleveland.

The objective portion of the test

was used for the purposes of this investigation, and included fifty completion and fifty multiple-choice items.

Raw scores

derived from these tests were converted to T-scores, thus ren­ dering them similar to the score system which prevailed in other parts of this study. A.

Retention of First-Year Religion over the Summer Interval In Table XL are presented the data concerning the re­

tention of first-yearrreligion as measured by the Cleveland test administered before and after the summer vacation period. From an examination of Table XL it is apparent that there were sustained over the vacation period comparatively large and highdy significant losses for all groups except the below-median-score group.

The mean decrease between pre-vaca­

tion and post-vacation scores for the total group, 3*5, represented a highly significant loss, as was evident from the large critical ratio of 6.60. Both above and below-median-IQ groups displayed sig­ nificant-summer-time decreases.

Again, the largest amount of

loss occurred in the above-median-score group, the loss of 5.8 representing a highly significant difference.

The below-median^

Clarence E. Elwe11, Our Quest for Happiness: A 'Hgxtbook Series for High School Religion (Chicago: Mentzer, _i Bush, and Company, 194-5). See pages 80-81.

TABLE XL RETENTION OF FIRST-YEAR RELIGION OVER THE SUMMER VACATION PERIOD

N

Mnq

Signifi­ C .R. cant at

Mn2

5%

Entire group

49 .77' 46.2

-3.5

0.53

6.60

if

if

81

55.1

51.2

-3.9

0.59

6.53

if

if

81

44*3

41.2

1 • H

Above median IQ(108.2) Below median IQ

162

0.89

3.51

if

if

Above median score(49*3) * 81 Below median 81 score

57*2

51.4

-5.8

0.68

8.59

if

if

42.1

40.9

-1.2

0.75

1.66

Interquart ile range (44.0-56 *4)

80

50.1

46.4

-3.7

0.7 0

5.25

if

if

Boys

87

48.4

44.4

0• -3* 1

0.81

4.96

if

if

Girls

75

51.2

48.3

-2.9

0.73

4.00

if

if

score group, as in previous findings for this category, displayed a non-significant loss; therefore, this group alone tended toward retention.

Boys forgot more than girls; for

t

"both, the summer-time decreases represented significant dif­ ferences . Thus, in first-year religion there appeared large and v/ highly significant summer-time decreases in mean scores* That these losses were comparatively large with reference to losses sustained in some of the other subjects in which reten­ tion was studied was due in part to the type of test used. One-half of the items of the Cleveland test were in the form

Sf completion items, the remainder being multiple-choice questions, whereas the questions were entirely of the mul­ tiple choice variety in the other tests used in this study of retention*. Several investigations have established that the threshold of recall, measured by completion items, is more sensitive than that of recognition, measured by multiple54 choice items*. The presence of the completion items in a test would, therefore, have the effect of lowering the ob­ tained scores to a point below that which would be achieved in a test entirely of the multiple-choice type. . Another fac­ tor to be considered in the question of retention of religion in this case is the fact that the particular test used, while objective in nature, was not a standardized instrument B.

Retention of Second-Year Religion over the-Summer Interval In Table XLI are summarized the data concerning the re­

tention of religion as measured by the second-year Cleveland religion tests administered to 169 sophomores before and after the summer vacation interval*. An examination of the table gives evidence of a high de­ gree of forgetting for the total group of second-year pupils and for the different groups into which they were divided; all losses were highly significant, as was indicated by the very 5 ^ C* W. Luh, The Conditions of Retention -(Psycholog­ ical Monographs, Vol. 31, No. 3, Whole N o . 142. Princeton: Psychological Review Company, 1922), 87 pp. See also John A . McG-eoch, Psychology of Human Learning (New York: Longmans, Green, and Company, 19^-2), pp. 340-42 •

u

55 gee page 85•

212 r

TABLE XLI

^

RETENTION OF SECOND-YEAR RELIGION OVER • THE SUMMER VACATION PERIOD

n:

Mni

Mh2

C .R.

Mnq-Mn2

Signifi­ cant at 5%

Entire group

•&

169

50.4

45.1

»5.3

0.44 12.00

84

54.2

50.9

-3.3

0.83

3.89

*&■

84

45.3

39.1

-6.8

0.59 10.51

•If

84

57.9

52.6

“5.3

0.85

6.79

-If

84

42 .8

37.7

-5.1

0.59

8.64

*I'c

Interquart ile range (43.0-57.5) 85 Boys 107 Girls 62

50*.5

44.1

-6 .4

0.64

9.32

49.1 52.4

43.5 48.0

-5.6 -4.4

0.61 0.76

9.22

Above median IQ(107.2) Below median IQ Above median score(49 *8) Below median score

large critical ratios.

5.85

2.%

if

•$£

"If

rC

Several departures from heretofore

established patterns of this investigation are apparent: the largest summer-time decreases occurred in the below-median-IQ and interquartile groups; the smallest loss was sustained by the above-median-IQ group.

Extremely large critical ratios

for almost all summer-time differences indicate that the losses were highly significant.

After the vacation period, the

above-median-score group continued to maintain a high average with reference to the other groups; second in post-vacation rank was the above-median-IQ group.

Thus, in this regard at

least, the post-vacation pattern resembled that previously found 'in this investigation.

Both boys and girls sustained large'and * —

213 r*

~i

significant losses.

It is possible that the low reliability of the test 56 employed was responsible, at least in part, for the results obtained in second-year religion.

In the completion portion

of the test were some items of an ambiguous nature which ad­ mitted of more than one.interpretation, a fact which tended to reduce the objectivity, and consequently the reliability of the test scores.

Again, the fact that the test measured

both recall and recognition functions tended to produce larger mean decreases in scores. C.

Comparative Retention of Knowledge of First and Second-Year Religion

In Table XLII are summarized the results arising from the comparison of the data for the retention of first-year religion with that of second-year religion. An examination of this table makes clear the fact of fairly large and very significant losses by the entire groups and by the interquartile groups of pupils in first and second-year religion, as measured by the Cleveland tests. For the interquartile groups, initial and final scores, as well as vacation-period losses, were very similar to those;, of the total body of students. Mean scores achieved

the above-median-IQ pupils in

both years were higher than those of the total groups both before and after the vacation interval; losses at both levels See page 85-and pages 90-91.

,

214 TABLE X L II

COMPARATIVE BIT ENT ION OE FIRST AND SECOND-YEAR RELIGION OVER THE SIMMER VACATION PERIOD

RELIGION I

BEL IG ION II

Batire Group N Mn^ Mnj? Mn^*Mn2 S ignificance level

169

162

RELIGION II

Interquartile Group 80

85

^.7 146.2 -3.5

50.4 45.1 -5.3

50.1 46.4 -3.7

50.5 44.1 “6.1+

1$

1$

1$

l*

Above Median IQ Md IQ, N Mni Mn2 Mn^«Mn2 Significance level

RELIGION I

108*2 81 55.1 5 1 .2 -3.3

Below Median IQ,

1 0 7 .2 84 54.2 50*9 -3*3

1#

108.2 81 UU.3 1+1.2 -3.1

107.2 8l+ 45.3 39.1 -6. 8

1*

1*

Above Median Score

l*

Below Median Score

Md Score N

49.3 81

49.8 84

>+9 . 3 81

49.8 84

Mn^ Mn2 Mn-j«Mn2 Significance 1 evel

57.2 51.4 -5.8

5 7 .9 5 2 .6 -5.3

1+2.1 1+0.9 *-1.2

42.8 37.7 -5.1

l*

•• •

l*

Boys N Mn^ Mn2 lS ignif icance level

87 48.4 44.4

Girls 107 4 9 .1 43.5

75 51.2 1+8.3

62 52.1+ 1+8.0

1*

1#

‘ l*

1J6

215 r"

in this category were almost equal, 3.9 and 3*3*

In the

“i

below-median-IQ groups, however, much larger summer-time losses were sustained by the second-year pupils than by those in the first year. In the case of religion, for the first time

the situ­

ation changed with reference to the above-median-score pupils.

In former instances in the present study,

the

largest amount of forgetting has occurred in these abovemedian-score groups.

In the case of second-year pupils in

this category, equally large losses were sustained by the total group, and larger losses by some of the other groups. These above-median-score pupils continued to know more after the vacation interval.

For the second-year below-median-

score group, the loss of 5.1, significant at the 1 per cent level, constituted a departure from' the tendency previously found for this low-scoring group toward a retention of prevacation average.

In first-year religion, this trend toward

retention did appear in this group, since the loss of 1.2 constituted a non-significant difference. The boys showed a higher degree of forgetting than did the girls in both first and second-year religion.

Boys dis­

played lower levels of achievement in both years than did the girls.

Boys forgot less in first-year religion than in

second-year religion; girls forgot more in first-year religion than in second. In summary, therefore, there were found comparatively large and highly significant summer-time decreases for the L —•

'216 r -i pupils participating in this section of the investigation. In considering these findings, it is necessary to recognize the fact that the religion tests employed in the study were not standardized, •as were the Cooperative Tests used in other sections of the investigation.

It is possible that

the reliability of the religion tests was so low as to render questionable the use of the retest scores as the measures of retention.

Another factor to be considered is the fact that

there were two. types of memory tested in religion, recall and recognition, since some of the religion test items were com­ pletion and others were multiple-choice items.. The Coopera­ tive Tests, on the other hand, measure retention by the recognition method only, which yields higher retention scores than does the recall method. VI.

RETENTION OF HIG-H-SCHOOL SUBJECT MATTER OVER THE SU1#1ER VACATION PERIOD

The data concerning the retention of high-school subject matter in the various fields in which this investi­ gation was conducted, as presented in Table XLIII, outline the results in terms of the total-pupil groups participating in the various sections of the study.

The retention scores

derived from the part-tests in elementary algebra, interme­ diate algebra, and plane geometry, and those obtained from the first and second-year religion examinations, were found in terms of T-scores.

All other retention measures, total

and part scores, were expressed in the Cooperative Test L

-J

217 r

TABLE X L I I I

RETENTION OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECT MATTER OVER THE SUMMER VACATION PERIOD

N

El. Algebra, Total Scores Computation Formulas, Graphs Problem-Solving

263

Mni

Mn2

Mni » Mn 2 Loss Gain

Significance Level 5$ 1$ $ * * 4c

4c 4c 4c 4c

* * *

4c 4c 4»

Int. Algebra, Total Score© Computat ion Problem-Solving

85

52.5 *9.9 ^.9

U2.6 - -2.0 ^5 .9 -3.7 -2.2 ^3 .7 b9.S A. 3 -3.0 ^9.5 41.2 -£•7 5 6 .6 45.6

PI. Geometry, Total Scores Geometric Principles Reasoning

201

50. k 50.1 50.0

47.8 46.s 48.1

-2.6 -3.2 -1 . 9

4c 4> 4c

4c 4c 4c

General Science Biology Chemistry

ib2

193 176

kl.l 53. k

40.5 51.3

53.7

52. S

-0.6 — 2.0 -1.5

4c 4c

4i 41

Latin I, Total Scores Translation Vocabulary Grammar

203

^5.1

43.8 45.1 43.1 46.2

-1.3 -1.3 ~o.8 - 2 .8

4c 4c 4c 4c

4c

Latin II, Total Scores Translation Vocabulary Grammar

91+ 197

—l. 2 ■/l.2 —0. 2 -1.9

4c 4c

4c

- 2 .7 - 2 .0 - 2 .7 -1.3

4i 4> 4c

4t 4c 4c

Spanish I , Total Scores Translation Vocabulary Grammar French I , Tot^lJScores Translation Vocabulary Grammar

m.e

.6 **5.9 ^7.5

k6.k

1+3o9 U9 . 0

3k

ks .3 kk.k ks.3

197

53.3

47.7 45.6 48.7 51.4

101

32.7 2 9 .g 32.7 29.3

30.0 2 7 .8 3 0 .0 28.0

k2

‘^2 .3 *40.9

44.5 42.0 48.2 46.1

kk.3

A. 2 A.i 43.6

4c

O *

41

A.8

World History American History

15 k 152

bo.k

3 8 .9 4 7 .0

-1 . 5 -1.1

4c *

4c

U8.1

Religion I Religion II

162 I69

^9-7 50. k

46.2 45.1

-3.5 -5.3

4i 4i

4> 4c

L

-I

218 r

i

ejy

sc§|.led-score units.* 1 An examination of* Table XLIII reveals that in some

school subjects retention over the vacation period was high; in some cases, the summer-time losses, while significant, were not large when viewed in the light of pre-vacation and post-vacation averages; in other cases, there were found high degrees of loss_on the part of the total distributions.

Va­

cation-period decreases ranged from the decline of 0.2 in ' Latin II vocabulary from the pre-vacation average of 4b.9, to the relatively large mean decrease of 8.7 from the initial average of 49.9 in intermediate algebraic computation. Losses sustained in second-year Latin vocabulary, in Spanish grammar, and in general science were not significant; that is, these decreases could be attributed to chance.

Conse­

quently, there was a tendency to retain pre-vacation knowl­ edge of these subjects, as measured by the particular tests used.

In first-year Latin translation, first-year Latin vo­

cabulary, second-year Latin total scores, and American history, the differences between pre-vacation and post-vacation- mean scores

were significant at the 5

per centlevel.

losses

were significant at the 1

per centlevel.

Not all differences were negative.

There were

All other

between initial and final averages found

gains inproblem-solving

for the total groups of pupils in both elementary and interme­ diate algebra; both increases were significant.

In second-

year Latin translation there was a non-significant increase. u

^7

See pages 80-81, and page 91.

-1

In all part scores in French, and in the total score, therJ were summer-time average increases, some of them significant* The limited sampling available in this subject, however, rendered the results in the study of retention of French of dubious reliability. When the over-all picture of summer-time retention in this investigation is considered, therefore, in terms of vacation-period mean score differences on the part of the total groups in the various school subjects, results showed that retention was high in knowledges and skills involving understanding and the ability to see relationships, as in problem-solving, translation, and vocabulary.

Differences

in mathematical computational skills represented the largest vacation-period losses.

~r

r CHAPTER V SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS I . SUMMARY

This investigation was undertaken to measure retention in certain selected areas of high-school subject matter over the period of the summer vacation*

Specifically, the inves­

tigation sought to answer the following questions: 1*

What amount of knowledge, as measured by stand­

ardized tests administered at the close of the school year in certain high-school subjects, persisted through the summer vacation period during which no formal study of those sub­ jects occurred? 2*

Did those who possessed the greatest amount of

measured knowledge in June retain the most over the summer vacation period?

That is, did pupils tend to have In Sep­

tember the same relative rank they held in June? 3«

How did the retention of the more intelligent

pupils compare with that of the less intelligent over the summer vacation period? 4.

How did the retention of boys during „the summer

vacation period compare with that of girls? 5«

How.did the retention of the interquartile group

compare with the retention of the total group of pupils in a given subject?

Was the retention of the middle 50 per

221 r “i cent of the pupils in a given distribution an index to the retention of the entire group? 6.

Were certain subjects retained better than others?

7*

Were certain'types of knowledge retained better

than others? Retention was studied by administering selected tests in May at the close of the school year, 1947-48, and by re­ peating the identical tests the following September immediately after the summer vacation period and before further formal instruction was undertaken.

Differences

between performances on the pre-vacation and post-vacation tests constituted the measures of retention* The subjects participating in this investigation were 2,234 pupils enrolled in the first, second, and third years of four Catholic high schools taught by the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, Ohio, and located in Cincinnati, Springfield, and Cleveland, Ohio.

Two of these schools are

coeducational; two are girls* schools.

The four secondary

institutions are similar in organization, curricula, courses of study, and methods of teaching.

Data obtained from these

schools were supplemented with additional cases in firstyear French and intermediate algebra drawn from.three Michigan high schools taught by the same religious community. Of the 2,234 subjects taking part in the investiga­ tion, 263 pupils participated in the study of retention of elementary algebra; 201 in plane geometry; eighty-five in ^intermediate algebra.

In the part of the study concerned

^

S/ith the retention of science, there we.re 14-2 cases in general science, 193 in biology, and 176 in chemistry.

n Two

hundred and three pupils participated in the study of re­ tention of first-year Latin; 197 .'in second-year Latin; 101 in first-year Spanish; forty-two in first-year French.

In

the field of history, there were 146 cases in American his­ tory; 154 in world history.

First-year pupils numbered

162; second-year religion pupils, 169. Pupils participating in the study of retention in each of the -subjects investigated were divided into groups for purposes of comparison, retention of each group being studied separately.

Thus, within each subject-matter area

there were in addition to the entire group of cases the following divisions: above-median-score and below-medianscore groups; above-median-IQ, and be low-median-IQ groups; boys and girls; and the interquartile group. The testing materials employed in this study included the Cooperative Achievement Tests. the annual Religion Tests administered in the schools of Cleveland, and the Otis SelfAdministering Tests of Mental Ability.

The Otis test was

used as the measure of mental .ability of the participating pupils, in order to compare retention of the more intelligent with that of the less intelligent, by obtaining separate in­ dices of retention for the groups above and below the median intelligence quotient in each distribution of scores.

The

Cooperative Achievement Tests were selected to measure prevacation and post-vacation achievement in various subject-

l_

,

-J

223 r matter areas because the tests are recognized as reliable

~i

and valid measures of high-school learning by authorities in the field*

The scaled-scores in which performance on these

tests is expressed afforded advantages of particular worth to the present study.

The point of reference of the scaled-

score system is the mean of the standardizing group, placed at the 50-point of a scale .in which each unit represents onetenth of the standard deviation of the. distribution of the standardizing group.

Scaled-score units of different tests

are comparable, and thus it was possible to compare retention between different subjects, such as American history and world history, and .between different types of knowledge within a given subject, such as Latin translation and Latin vocabulary*

All of the Cooperative Tests measure retention

by. means of recognition, employing for the most part the multiple-choice type of item*

Studies of recall and recog­

nition types of memory have established the differences between these two types of measurement.

The employment of

the recognition instrument throughout the tests effected a consistency of results* In the study of retention, the following tests were employed: 1.

The Cooperative Algebra Test: Elementary Algebra

Through Quadratics. Form T, consisting of three parts which measure respectively computational skills, ability to ma­ nipulate formulas and interpret graphs, and problem-solving ability.

Scaled-score equivalents for total raw scores were,

224 ravailable,,but not for scores on the part tests.

Part-test.n

scores were converted to T-scores., .in order to compare re­ tention, of different types of skills measured in the three sec:tJLons of the test;; 2*

The Cooperative Intermediate Algebra.-Test. Form

T, including two parts which emphasizes computational skills and problem-solving ability.

Total achievement of the group

participating in this phase of the investigation was ex­ pressed" in scaled scores,,achievement on the part tests in T-scores.

Thus, retention scores of the different skills

within the test were comparable one to the other; retention in terms of total scores was comparable to that measured by the other Cooperative Tests; 3« -The Cooperative Plane G-eometrv Test. Form R,. composed of three sections, of which the first.is a truefalse test of geometric principles and concepts, the second and third a series of problems of construction and logical reasoning.. As in the other mathematics tests used,, total retention was measured in terms of the Cooperative scaled scores.

Part scores.'on the first section of the test, and

the combined scores of the second and third parts were con­ verted to T-scores. 4*. Tests employed in the field of science included the Cooperative General Science Test. Form X, the Coopera­ tive Biology Test. Form X, and the Cooperative Chemistry Test., Form X. administered to pupils in the first, second, ^nd third years of high school respectively.

No effort was-J

225 —|

p

made to separate total scores into derived scores based on knowledge measured by the various parts of these tests,

as was done in mathematics, since the differences between the parts of the science tests were not sufficiently clearcut to justify such a procedure.

Retention was therefore

expressed in terms of total scaled scores only. 5.

In the study of retention in the area of languages,

■the following tests were employed: the Cooperative Latin Test. Advanced Form R, the Cooperative Latin Test, Elemen­ tary Form R, the Cooperative Spanish Test. Elementary Form P, and the Cooperative French Test. Elementary Form R . The elementary forms of the'se tests were administered to firstyear students of the languages; the advanced form of the Latin test to second-year Latin students.

Each of these

language tests is actually a compos-ite of three separate tests measuring respectively translation ability, vocabula­ ry knowledge, and knowledge of grammatical skills.

Scaled

scores for each separate skill and for total achievement are available in Latin, Spanish,' and French.

Retention

scores obtained in this study were therefore comparable within and between the four languages studied. 6.

In studying the retention of history over the

summer vacation period, the Cooperative American History Test. Form T, was administered to third-year pupils, and the* Cooperative World History Test. Form X, "to first and second-year pupils. L

As with the science, retention was

obtained in terms of total scores only. J

-I

226 "7

r

7^. Investigation of the retention of knowledge

acquired in first-year and second-year religion involved the use of the annual religion tests employed in the dio­ cese of Cleveland. ognition items•

These tests involved recall and rec­

Constructed annually by committees of

teachers, they have not been standardized.

When the Kuder-

Richardson formula was applied to the test scores of the pupils participating in this part of the study, the relia­ bility of the first-year,test was found to be *87, with a standard error of 4.5; the reliability of the second-year test,

.85 with a standard error of 3*9. /Procedures followed in this investigation of retention

involved the following steps 1 / 1.

Administration of the tests at the close of the

school year subsequent to all formal instruction and immedi­ ately before the summer vacation.^

This pre-vacation testing

was ca,rrieb out by the classroom teachers under the' super­ vision of the principals and the investigator on May 26, May 27, and June 1, 1948.

Tests were scored by the investi­

gator and trained workers, and were re-checked by the investigator. ^2.

Repetition of the identical tests after the summer

vacation period before further instruction occurred/ on September 11, 12, and 13, 1948.

Tests were scored by the in­

vestigator with the help of trained assistants, and were carefully rechecked. L

^3.

Intelligence tests on the Otis Self-Administering -1

227 ^ests o f .Mental Ability, which had "been administered in

“i

March and April, 1948 to all participating pupils,^ were obtained from the school records^ (4.

Organization and tabulation of data derived from

tests and part tests in each school subject studied, for the entire group of students participating in each section of the study and for the part-groups into which each distribu­ tion of scores was divided

These included the above-median-

IQ and below-median-IQ groups, the above-median-score and below-median-score groups, the boys and the girls, and the interquartile group. 5*

Statistical treatment of data, involving the

following techniques : /.

a.

_

Determination of the mean difference between pre

vacation and post-vacation scores in each school subject and part-subject studied, for the entire group in each dis­ tribution and for the subgroups into which the cases were divided for purposes of comparison. b; ^Determination of the reliability of the obtained mean differences by the paired-group method. I In analyzing the data of this investigation, the 5 per cent and 1 per cent points were set as the accuracy limits.

Where mean differences were found to be significant

at the 1 per cent level, they have been described in this summary a s .significant; where the critical ratios set the level of reliability at the .01 per cent limit, as highly significant; where differences were significant at the Li

228 r 5 per cent Put not at the 1 per cent level, this fact has been indicated.

"i

When the data were analyzed according to

groups and subgroups, the following results were obtained: 1.

In elementary algebra, the entire group of- 263

first-year pupils sustained over the vacation period a sig­ nificant mean loss in total scores of 2.0 from the pre-va­ cation average of 44.6.

In computational skills, the loss

of 3*5 after an initial average of 49.6 was highly signifi­ cant.

In the test involving formulas and graphs, there was

a significant decline of 2.2 from the initial average of 45*9.

In problem-solving, there was a significant increase

over the pre-vacation average of 47*5* 2.

When the elementary algebra scores were divided

for the subjects above and below the median intelligence quotient of 105, the above-median-IQ group was found to have sustained over the vacation period a significant mean de­ crease in total scores of 2.0 from the pre-vacation average of 46.6; the below-median-IQ group, a significant decrease of 1.7 from the average, 42.6.

In computational skills, the

above-median-IQ group displayed an initial mean score of 52.2, with a significant loss of 4.6; the below-median-IQ group,' an average of 47-0, with a significant loss of 2.8. In the test involving formulas and graphs, for the above-me­ dian- IQ pupils there was a non-significant decline from the May average of 47-7; for the be low-median-IQ pupils, a de­ cline of 2.8 from the average 44.1, a difference significant at the 5 per cent level.

L

In problem-solving, the above-

—1

229 median-IQ pupils displayed a gain over the pre-vacation average of 48*9 amounting to 2.2, significant at the 5 pe^ cent level; the helow-median-IQ pupils, a gain of 2.3 over the average 46.1, also significant at the 3 per cent level. 3*

When the elementary algehra scores were sepa­

rated into those of pupils above and he low the median score, the above-median-score group was found to have sustained a highly significant decrease of 4.4 from the pre-vacation mean of 50.0; the below-median-score group, a non-significant gain of 0.5 over the initial average of 39#2.

In computa­

tional skills, for the ahove-median-score group there was a highly significant decline of 6.6 from the pre-vacation mean score, 56.0; for the he low-median-sc ore group, a non-signifi­ cant decline from the average 43.2 which amounted to 0.9. In the test involving formulas and graphs, there was for the above-median-sc ore pupils an initial mean score of 51*7 and a highly significant loss of 7.8; for the helow-median-score pupils, a significant gain of 3*4 over the May average, 40.5. In problem-solving ability, the above-median-score group sus­ tained a non-significant* mean decrease of 2.2 from the aver­ age 55.2; the below-median-score group, a highly significant mean increase of 6.8 over the average 39.8. 4.

When the scores of the boys were separated from

those of the girls, the mean score of the boys on the total test, 44.2, was found to have decreased significantly by a ■ difference of 1.3 during the summer interval; the difference for the girls, whose initial average was 45.0, amounted to _j

230 ra loss of 1.3, significant‘at the 5 per cent level.

In com­

putational skills, the boys sustained a significant decrease of 3.2 from the average of 51.4.

In the test of formulas

and graphs, the boys1 initial average was 47.4, the summer­ time loss amounting to 3*9, a significant difference; the corresponding values for the girls were 44.6 and 0.7, the latter a non-s ignif icant difference.

In problem-solving, the

boys displayed a sigh if icant‘mean increase of 3«3 over the average 49*5; the girls, a non-significant gain of 1.4 over the pre-vacation mean of- 45-7 • 5.

When the interquartile range was separated from

the entire distribution of elementary algebra scores, the pre-vacation mean in terms of total scores was found to be 44.1 with a significant summer-time loss of 3*0.

In compu­

tational skills the initial average was 49*5; tne loss of 4.4 was significant.

In the test on formulas aiad graphs,

this group sustained a significant mean decrease of 3*6 from the pre-vacation average of 45.2; in problem-solving, a sig­ nificant gain of 5.0 over the initial mean score of 47.1. 6.

In intermediate algebra, the entire group of

eighty-five third-year pupils sustained over the vacation period a significant mean decrease of 3*0 from the May total-score mean of 52.5.

In computational skills, there

was a highly significant decrease of 8.7 from the average of 49.0.

In problem-solving ability, this group displayed a

significant mean gain of 5-6 over the pre-vacation mean of 56.6. 7.

When the intermediate algebra group was divided

-1

231 r

at the point of the median intelligence quotient, 113, the

~i

above-median-IQ, pupils displayed a pre-vacation average of 54.1

with a non-significant vacation-period loss of 1*8;

the below-median-IQ group, an average of 51*0 with a signif­ icant loss of 4.0.

In. computational skills, the above-

.i||edian-IQ pupils sustained a significant decline of 6.7 from the mean score 52.2; the below-median-IQ pupils, a highly significant loss of 10.5 after an initial average of 47*6,

In problem-solving, the increase of the above-median-

IQ pupils, amounting to 8.2 over the initial average 58.6, represented a significant difference; the gain of the belowmedian-IQ pupils, 3*1 over the average 49*6, was significant at the 5 per cent level. 8.

When the intermediate algebra scores were sepa­

rated at the median-score point, the mean loss of 4.1 for the above-median-score group, representing a decline from the initial average, 58*7, was significant; for the belowmedian-score pupils the loss of 1.8 from the mean score of 46.3 was not significant.

In computational skills, the

above-median-score pupils displayed a highly significant mean loss of 11.4 after a pre-vacation average of 58.2; the below-median-score pupils, a significant mean loss of 5*8 after a pre-vacation mean score of 41.6.

In problem­

solving, the summer-time gain of 1.9 over the initial score of,55*0 by the upper half of the pupils was not significant; the gain of the lower half over the initial mean score of L

45*0 amounted to a significant increase of 9*0.

-I

232

r

9.

When the intermediate algebra cases were sepa­

~i

rated according to sex, the mean total-test score of* the sixty-five boys was found to have decreased by 3*1 from the pre-vacation average of 52*4; the loss constituted a sig­ nificant difference.

The total-test score of the girls was

decreased from 32.6 by a non-significant loss of 2.3*

In

computational skills, the boys sustained a highly signifi­ cant decrease of 9.6 from the pre-vacation average of 49.4; the girls, a decrease of 5*6 from the mean score 51*4, a difference significant at the 5 per* cent level.

In prob­

lem solving, the boys1 mean gain of 5.6 over the initial average 51.0 was .sign if icant; that of the girls, 5*3 over the average 46.5, was significant at the 5 p e r cent level. 10.

When the interquartile range of intermediate

algebra scores was separated from the total distribution, the pre-vacation total-test mean score of the middle 50 per cent of the cases was found to be 52.8, with a significant vacation-period loss of 4.1.

In computational skills, there

was a highly significant decrease of 8.8 from the initial average of 50.3.

In problem-solving-, this group displayed

a significant gain of 7.2 over the initial average of 45*6. 11.

In plane geometry, the 201 second-year pupils

sustained significant losses in total scores, as well as in scores on the part tests.

For the total test, the decrease

amounted to 2.6 from the pre-vacation mean of 50.4; on the test of geometric facts and principles, 3*2 from an average of .50.1; on the test involving constructions and logical

233 r reasoning, 1*9 from an initial mean of 50.0.. 12*

When the plane geometry scores were divided at

the point of the median intelligence quotient, 10-9*9, losses for the resulting groups over the vacation period were like­ wise significant'!

In total scores, the difference for the

above-median-IQ group was 3-3, the initial average was 53*2; for the below-median-IQ group the corresponding values were 2*0 and 47*7•

In the test of geometric facts and principles,

the pre-vacation average of the above-median-IQ group was 52,7, the summer-time loss was 4.1;

these values for the

below-median-IQ group were 47,5 and 2.2, with this differ­ ence significant at the 5 per cent level.

In the test

involving constructions and reasoning ability, losses of both groups were significant at the 5 per cent level: for the above-median-IQ pupils the decrease from the pre-vaca­ tion average of 32.3 amounted to 1.9; for the below-median-IQ group the pre-vacation average was 47-.6, and the vacationperiod loss was 1.8. 13*

When the geometry scores were divided at the

median-score points of the total-score and part-test dis­ tributions, the losses of the above-median-score groups were in every case significant; those of the below-medianscore groups, non-significant.

In the total test, the pre­

vacation average of the above-median-score group was 58.0, the summer-time loss was 4.2; the corresponding values for the below-medi’an-score group were 42.8 and. 2.0.

In geo­

metric .facts and principles, the upper half of the pupils

234 r sustained a vacation-period decline of 5*0 from the May

n

average of 57*8; the lower half, a decrease of 1.4 from the average 42.3*

In the test involving understanding.of con­

structions and reasoning ability, there was a decrease for the higher-scoring pupils of 4*0 from the average of 58.3; for the low-scoring pupils, a decrease of 0.3 from the average 41.6. 14.

When the geometry scores of the hoys were sepa­

rated from those of the girls, the vacation-period losses of both in terms of total-test scores were significant: for the boys, the mean decrease over .the summer interval from the May average of 45*3 amounted to 2.9; the corre­ sponding values for the girls were 52.9 and 2.4. metric facts and principles,

In geo­

the boys displayed an initial

mean score of 47*3 with a vacation-period loss of 2.6, significant at the 5 per cent level; the girls, a signifi­ cant decrease of 3*6 from the average 52.0.

In the test

involving constructions and reasoning ability, the loss of 2.3 from .the average 45*9 sustained by the boys was signifi­ cant; that of the girls, 1.5 from the average 52.9, was significant at the 5 per cent level. 15.

When the interquartile scores were separated

from the entire distribution of plane geometry scores, the losses in terms of the total test and of the test of geo­ metric facts and principles were significant: in these two tests, the pre-vacation averages of the interquartile group L.

were 50.5 and 50.1; the losses over the vacation period,

—1

235 p

—i

3*6 and 4.3 respectively.

In the test involving understand­

ing of constructions and reasoning ability, the mean loss of 1.9 from the pre-vacation average of 47*8 was significant at the 5 per cent level. 16.

In general science,, there was found a tendency

toward retention of pre-vacation knowledge as measured by the tests used.

The entire group of 142 first-year pupils

achieved a pre-vacation average of 40.5, with a non-signifi­ cant summer-time loss of 0.6.

When the scores of these

pupils were separated at the point of the median intelligence quotient, 9 9*0, the decrease of the above-median-IQ, group, 0.7 from the initial average of 45•9, was not significant; the same was true of the decrease of 0.6 from the average of 3 6 .3 sustained by the below-median-IQ pupils.

When the

point of the median score was used to separate the scores of the participating pupils, the upper half was found to have sustained a significant-loss, amounting to 2.3 from the prevacation average of 50.5; the lower half, a non-significant gain of 1.0 over the average 3

1

The boys displayed a

decrease of 2.0 from the May average 47*2; the girls, a gain of 0.1 over 37*8; neither difference was significant.

The

loss of the interquartile group, 2.4 after a pre-vacation mean score of 41.6, constituted a significant difference. 17-

In biology, the summer-vacation differences

were found to be significant for all except the abovemedian-IQ pupils, who sustained a slight decrease of 0.4 u

from the ore-vacation average of 54.5*

The loss of the

-i

236 r" entire group of 193 second-vear pupils participating in

—i

this section of the investigation was 2*0, the initial average was 53*4.

The decrease sustained by the below-

median-IQ group was 3*7, the pre-vacation average being 52.5* When separated at the point of the median score, the abovemedian-score pupils were found to have sustained a highly significant decline of 5*8 from the average 62.3; the belowmedian-score pupils, on the other hand, displayed a signifi­ cant increase of 1.8 over the initial average 44.5.

^he

boys suffered a loss of 6.5 from the pre-vacation mean score of 63*3; the girls, a decline of 1.1 from 51.4; the loss of the boys was significant, and that of the girls significant at the 5 per cent level.

The pre-vacation average of the

interquartile group was 52.0, the loss of 2.0 here, as in •the case of the other groups except the more intelligent, signif icant• 18.

In chemistry, the total group of 176 third-year

students sustained a significant loss of 1,5 after the prevacation average of 53*7» as did the above-median-score group, with a mean decrease of 2.9 from the average 60.7; the gir3?s, with a loss of 2.1 from the mean score 54.7; and the interquartile group, with a decline of 2.0 from the average 54.3*

The loss of 1.6 sustained by the above-median-

IQ pupils from the pre-vacation mean score of 58.1 was sig­ nificant at the 5 per cent level.

Losses of the below-me-

dian score group, 0.1 from the average 46.6, and those of the boys, 0.7 from 52.4, were not significant.

237 r

19.

~i In elementary Latin, 203 first-year pupils dis­

played a mean vacation-period difference of 1.3, a signifi­ cant decline from the pre-vacation average of 45.1.

The

initial mean score on the translation test, 46,4, was fol­ lowed by a summer-time loss of 1.3; on the vocabulary test, these values amounted to 43.9 and 0.8; in both cases, the differences were significant at the 5 per cent level.

In

the grammar test, the decrease of 2.8 from the initial mean score of 49.0 represented a significant loss. 20.

When the elementary Latin scores were separated

at the point of the median intelligence quotient, 105.4, the above-median-IQ pupils were found to have sustained a total-score mean loss of 2.6 from the pre-vacation average of 49*2, the decrease representing a significant difference; the slight increase of the below-median-IQ pupils, 0.1 over the pre-vacation average of 40.9, was not significant.

In

translation, the above-median-IQ group displayed a decline of 1.8 from the average 49.8, a loss significant at the 5 per cent level; the below-median-IQ group, a non-significant loss of .0.6 from the pre-vacation mean score of 42.9. 21.

When the elementary Latin scores were divided at

the points of the medians on the total test and on the part tests, the total-test mean decrease of the above-median-score group, 4.1 from.the pre-vacation average of 51.5, was found to be highly significant; the gain of 1.5 over the initial average of 38*7 by the below-median-score group was not ^signif icant.

Decreases in translation, vocabulary, and

_j

238

r* ~i grammar scores sustained by the above-median-score pupils were likewise highly significant: for the three tests the initial averages with corresponding summer-time losses were 53*9

less 4.3, 4-9.8 less 2.9, and 54.7 less 6.0.

The below-

median-score pupils displayed gains on each test: in trans­ lation, an increase of 1.8 over the.pre-vacation average of 48.9; in vocabulary, 1.3 over the average 38.0; in grammar, 0.5 over the average 43*7*

The last difference was not sig­

nificant; the other two represented significant gains. 22..

When the elementary Latin scores of the boys

were separated from those of the girls, tjie boys, whose scores were lower than those of the girls, displayed non­ significant losses in all the tests.

On the total test,

there, was for the boys a decrease of 0.4 from the initial average 41.5; in reading, their pre-vacation mean score amounted to 43.5, the summer-time loss to 1.6; in vocabula­ ry, the initial mean was 40.8, followed by a gain of 0.3; in grammar, there was no difference between pre-vacation and post-vacation scores.

For the girls, there were sig­

nificant losses: in total-test scores, 1.5 after an initial average of 46.0; in vocabulary, 1.1 from the average of 44.7; in grammar, 3»4 from the mean score of 49*9.

In

translation, the loss of 1.1 from the average 47.1 sus­ tained by the girls was significant at the 5 per cent level. 23-

The interquartile range of the elementary Latin

scores displayed the following summer-time declines: the decreases in total-test scores of 1.2 from the average of

239 r

—1

44.7, and in vocabulary of 1.1 from the average 44.0 were

both significant at the 5 par cent level.

In reading, there

was for the middle 50 per cent of the pupils a loss of 2.5 from the pre-vacation average of 47.3; in grammar, the cor­ responding values amounted to 3*9 and 48.5; in both cases the differences were significant. 24.

In advanced Latin, there was evident a trend

toward retention of pre-vacation knowledge.

On the total

test, the loss sustained over the summer vacation amounted to 1.2 after the initial average of 48.9, the difference significant at the 5 per cent level.

In reading and vocabu­

lary, however, the summer-time differences were attributable to chance factors; in reading, the difference of 1.2 repre­ sented & non-significant increase over the prevacation: mean of 44.4; in vocabulary, the difference of 0.3 constituted a non-significant decrease from the average 48.9.

The total-

group mean less in grammar, amounting to 1.9 after an initial average of 53*3> represented a significant difference. 25*

When the advanced Latin scores were divided at

the point of the median intelligence quotient, 1 0 7 .5 , the trend toward retention was emphasized.

Only in grammar

were there significant losses: for the above-median-IQ, group, a decrease of 1.8 from the average 54.7; for the below-me­ dian- IQ group, a 'decrease of 2.1 from the average 52.5.

In -

translation, the gain of 2.4 over the pre-vacation average of 45*3 was significant at the 5 per cent level; the below^median-IQ group showed a slight difference of 0.1 after the_,

initial average of 43.5.

In vocabulary, the above-median- "i

IQ pre-vacation score of 51*2 was lessened by 0.3 over the vacation period; the below-median-IQ average of 46.6, by 0.2