Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects, in the perceptual-motor task, of the massed and distributed practice (called MP and DP respectively) of the subjects divided by sex and abilities. The anticipation was established that the effects of MP and DP will vary with sex, but not with high and low abilities. The present study thus consists of three experiments. In experiment I, the second grade pupils of elementary school were asked to copy the alphabetical letters as fast as possible. In experiment II, the second grade students of middle school were solicited to write inverted Katakana (the Japanese letters) as fast and exact as possible. In experiment III, the fourth grade pupils of elementary school were instructed to perform a substitution task as fast as possible. The subjects in each experiment learned each task in terms of MP and DP. The results were as follows.
1. The performance results measured by the learning speed.
(1) A significant difference was not observed between the effects of MP and DP both in the case of males and in the case of females in experiment I and II. However, a significant difference was found in experiment III. In addition, the results from experiment I and II indicated the same trend as those from experiment
(2) The difference failed to reach the significance level between males and females, when MP and DP were disregarded. Only in experiment III, there was a trend that the performance by females was superior to that by males, but the difference was not significant.
(3) The effects of MP and DP were not significantly different at the ability levels. In experiment I, however, a tendency was seen that the performance was different between MP and DP in the low ability group. However, the high ability group showed nearly the same performance in MP and DP.
(4) The speed of learning was significantly faster in the high ability group than in the low ability group.
2. The performance results measured by the errors.
(1) There was not a significant difference in the errors between MP and DP either in the case of males or in the case of females in experiment II.
(2) The difference was not significant in the errors between males and females.
(3) A tendency was found that the difference in the performance between MP and DP seemed larger in the low ability group than in the high ability group. However, there was not a significant difference between the effects of MP and DP either in the case of the high ability group or in the case of the low ability group.
(4) The errors of the high ability group were significantly fewer than those of the low ability group.
3. The above results seem almost to support the anticipation concerning the performance viewed from learning speed. The personality traits of males and females, the learning conditions of MP and DP, and the distraction and recovery of set in ability groups were discussed in connection with the results obtained here. As the present study is only one trial of a series of research, further studies will be called for in the future.
