The Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology
Online ISSN : 2186-3075
Print ISSN : 0021-5015
ISSN-L : 0021-5015
Volume 16, Issue 2
Displaying 1-7 of 7 articles from this issue
  • Effect of Task Complexity and Intuitiveness of the Relevant Dimension
    Keiko Kuhara, Giyoo Hatano
    1968 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 65-71,121
    Published: June 30, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This study was aimed at investigating the relation of intelligence to concept learning. Two experiments were undertaken to clarify how dif ferent was the effct of task, complexity and intuitiveness of the relevant dimension on learners' performance, depending on their intellectual development. In both experiments, Ss were to learn a simple concept which was defined by a value on a certain dimension. Ss were presented instances one at a time and required to guess whether it belonged to concept A or not. Confirming information was given immediately. Successive10correct responses were required as the criterion of learning. An instance could be described by values of3 (form and number of figures, and width of a border) or6dimension (color of figure, color and position of a border in addition to3dimensions described above). Experimental variables. were i) number of irrelevent dimensions (2, 5) and ii) intuitiveness of the relevant dimension (intuitively conspicuous...form of figures, intuitively less noticiable...width of a border).
    Four groups of high (HI) and average intelligence (AI) 5-graders served as Ss in exp. I. In exp. II, average 6-graders and4-graders were served as Ss, instead of HI and AI. The reseults were as follows:
    1) The more was the number of irrelevant dimensions, the more difficult was learing. This inhibitive effect was marked regardless of the degree of intellectual development (MA).
    2) If the relevant dimension was intuitively conspicuous, Ss learned the concept more easily. Contribution of this factor, however, was smaller among HI and6-graders, i. e., intellectually more mature Ss.
    3) It was hypothesized but was not statistically confirmed that intuitiveness of relevant dimension would greatly influenced on the performance of Ss when the number of irrelevant dimension was larger. The inhibitive effect of task complexity tended to be greater among 6-graders when the relevent dimension was conspicuous and smaller when it was less noticiable than among 4-graders.
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  • Noriko Hori
    1968 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 72-79,122
    Published: June 30, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The first purpose of the present study is to investigate whether or not the social reinforcement will have an effect on the acquisition of cooperative behavior of children and if so, how effective it will be. The second purpose is to examine in what degree the level of development of cooperation and the ways of giving social reinforcement will influence its effects.
    Subjects were32boys and28girls, whose average age was five years, and they were divided into two groups by the pre-test. The first group could cooperate already (H group) and the second could not cooperate yet (L group). In each group Ss were paired, then three exprimental conditions were introduced;1) response reinforcement condition (RR), 2) cue reinforcement one (CR), 3) non reinforcement one (NR). Under RR condition, social reinforcements were given verbally whenever a child shared his instruments with his partner. Under CR condition, E reinforced him just like under RR condition, after suggesting the trouble of his partner to him (ex. A is in trouble, you know, as he hasn't any suitable instruments for his task). Under NR condition no control was given.
    The experiment continued for4days;on the middle two days above-mentioned three conditions were operated (training session), while on the first and fourth days no reinforcement was given. Several days after those sessions, the follow-up test was given only to the experimental condition groups (RR & CR) in order to prove the consistency of reinforcement effect. These experiments and tests took about20minutes. The tasks of pre-and post-training session were the same an d could be accomplished even if they didn't work together. On the other hand the training tasks could be only achieved by cooperative exchange of their instruments. Ss'behaviors were observed and recorded in terms of the predetermined behavior categories by E.
    The reinforcement effects were measured according to the change of response frequency between pre-and post-training.
    The results were as follows.
    (1) The two experimental conditions (RR & CR) increased significantly cooperative behavior in the experimental sessions. Furthermore the degree of their increase was larger than that under NR condition. These obtained cooperative behaviors were not extinct in the follow-up test. These results suggest that their reinforced bahaviors occurred seeking for approval.
    (2) The level of development of cooperation influenced degree of being reinforced. That is, L group showed significantly more cooperative behaviors than H group.
    However, between RR and CR conditions, there were no different effectiveness of social reinforcement. This result was not in accord with the supposition that under CR condition Ss might spontaneously share his instruments with his partner, because they had obtained the response-cue.
    Social reinforcement was found to be useful for growing interpersonal behavior such as cooperative behavior, the effects of which were large and stable in spite of being given only2days.
    The result of this study en the level of development of cooperative behavior was interpreted as follows;L group showed cooperative behavior seeking for approval in order to reduce emotional tension which they might have more than RR group. Thus, this emotional factor seems to be cne of the important factors which influenced the effects of social reinforcement.
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  • An Application of Signal Detection Theory
    Ikuko Ogasawara
    1968 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 80-86,123
    Published: June 30, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this study was to see the relation of the detectability measure of the signal detection model and other educational test scores such as the personality test, the course of study, and I. Q. test.
    The experiments were designed to determine how well Japanese students in high school can evaluate the intelligibility of their own English hearing reception, applying the detectability measure of the signal detection model. Two types of English hearing tests were given to the Ss English perception and meaning. The general testing procedure employed was identical to the standard English intelligibility test procedure with one addition: After the listener responded to each test item, he reported his judged accuracy of his own reception. The rating scale with five categories was as follows.
    5. I am certain I understood the message correctly.
    4. I am fairly certain I undetstood the message correctly.
    3. Undecided.
    2. I am fairly sure I did not understand the message correctly.
    1. I am certain I did not understand the message correctly.
    The data were analysed in terms of ROC curve and the detectability scores (dr) were obtained. To obtain personality test scores, Yatabe-Guilford Personality Test, General Anxiety Test, Myers Briggs Type Indicator, and TPI were given to the senior high 1st-year students. Yatabe-Guilford Test, General Anxiaety Test, and Nagashima Adjustment Inventory were given to the junior high school 1st-year students. Correlation coefficients between the detectability measure and the personality test scores were obtained. The results indicated that depressive, neurotic, introversive scores of personality tests had negative correlations with the detectability measure. On the contrary, extraversive, active scores of personality tests had positive correlations with the detectability scores.
    The correlation coefficients between the detectability measure and the achivement scores of the courses of study did not show the clear results among different school years. In general, in higher levels of high school there was a closer relation between them.
    The correlation coefficients between the detectability score and Tanaka-Binet test score were positive in senior high school 1st-year, but there was no correlation in junior high school 1st-year.
    Possible applications to educational problems of these studies and the detectability measure were discussed.
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  • Yoshiko Tanaka
    1968 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 87-99,124
    Published: June 30, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The present study aimed at investigating. the development of children's representation of spatial transformation. Experiments were concerned with the positions of objects relative to one another from various view points.
    Experiment I:The apparatus used were a bowling pin and a bowling ball (two objects situation) and a model of three mountains on a base (three objects situation). A little doll was placed at a number'of different positions one by one and the child was asked to imagine the changes in appearance that will accompany the doll's movements.
    In both situations, the following three types of tasks were given.
    a) The child was shown a collection of pictures of the objects taken from various points of view and asked to choose the suitable one from them.
    b) The child was shown pictures one by one and asked to identify the position which the doll must occupy.
    c) The child was given two or three pieces of cardboard which has the same shape and colour with those of the objects above mentioned and asked to arrange them to reproduce the scene as seen from a given position. The child remained stationary during the experiments. After this the child, who failed the task c), was told to sit at other positions and to reproduce the scene as seen from the position which he had once occupied. It was aimed at investigating the effect of the experience.
    One hundred and twenty six children from4:11 years to13:11years participated in the experiments.
    ExperimentII:This was undertaken to complement Exp. I and analyze the parameters which determine the difficulty of the task.
    The parameters tested here were those of the number of objects (two or three), the number of dimensions involved (one or two), and the type of transformation (before-behind→ behind-before, before- behind→ left-right, left-right→ before-behind, leftright oright-lgt). The procedure was essentially the same with that of Exp. I.
    One hundred and thirty children from5:4years to12:1years participated in the experiment.
    The following findings were obtained:1) Children's representation of spatial transformation developed step by step. When the task involved only one dimension, children became able to represent all types of transformation by 9 or 10years, and when the task involved two dimensions, by11or12 years. The effect of experience was not so large, but the effect became larger in older children. 3) As to the difficulty of the task of transformation, the type of transformation before-behind→behind-. before was easiest, left-right→before-behind was next, before-behind→left-right was rather difficult and left-right→right-left was most difficult. 4) The parameter of the number of objects did not determine the difficulty of the task so much, but the parameter of the number of dimensions involved determined the difficulty of the task.
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  • Miki Kuranuki
    1968 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 100-110,86
    Published: June 30, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this study was to examine the moral judgement of the children towards the punishments during their developing age from 4 to 8' years olds. As the mother's influence on children is incredible in forming attitude towards life by the children, the rearing attitude of the mothers was also studied. For this reason, 250children from4to8years age group (25 children of each sex group) were interviewed and their mothers were also investigated through questionnaires.
    Children's ideas about punishments were considered in order to examine the moral judgement of the children. Piaget had studied the moral judgement of children in 1930. He established the theory that the children preferred the morality of cooperation or of autonomy to the morality of constraint or of heteronomy with the advancement of their age. As for punishments, he found, the younger children favoured “expiatory punishment (it goes hand in hand with constraint and rules of authority) ”while the older ones tended more towards “punishment by reciprocity (it goes hand in hand with cooperation and rules of equality)”. As Piaget did, in this study too, these two types of punishments (“expiatory punishment”,“punishment by reciprocity”) were suggested to each child and then he was asked which one was the most fair for him. The stories about punishments in this investigation were prepared by the author.
    In order to investigate the rearing attitude of the mothers, the inventory of57items by Radke was used. The inventory by Radke takes up many concrete attitudes about the rearing of the children. During the child's interview, his or her mother was asked to fill in the supplied inventory.
    The results of the investigation were as follows:
    1) The children were found to select punishment by reciprocity “after” expiatory punish-ment with the*advancement of their age. This result was in conformity with the findings of Piaget. But, in this case, the period of change took place at about5or6years of age. In comparison with the Piaget's data, the period of change was different;possibly due to the environmental and other factors. According to the Freudian theory, the super-ego of a child develops during this period of change.
    2) In the result about the relationship between the moral judgement of the children and the rearing attitude of the mothers, the child, living in democratic domestic atmosphere, selected “punishment by reciprocity”. While living in autocratic domestic atmosphere, the child selected “expiatory punishment”. On the other hand, by examining each item asked to the mothers, the judgements made by children on the subject of punishments were found to correspond, up to a given point, with the experiences of real life.
    In conclusion, the domestic environment of the children, the rearing attitude of their mothers and the mothers'role in the family are of great significance in forming the morality of the children. Primarily, these factors influence the children in making the moral judgement in childhood.
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  • Michihiko Matsuda, Fumiko Matsuda
    1968 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 111-115,126
    Published: June 30, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this experiment was to study effects of motivation levels and test anxiety levels on memory learning in 5th grade children.
    Fourteen boys and14girls with high test anxiety and14boys and14girls with low anxiety were selected from248children in5th grade. A half of each group learned under high motivating instr uction and the other half learned under low motivating instru-ction.
    Results were as following:
    1) There was no effect of motivation level on performance in high test anxiety. groups of both boys and girls. But in low test anxiety groups high motivated Ss made more correct responses than low motivated Ss. This effect was particulary strong in the case of girls.
    2) Under low motivating instructions there was no difference in performance between high anxiety groups and low anxiety groups. Under high motivating instructions there was no significant difference between the two groups in boys, but in girls low test anxiety group made more correct reponses than high anxiety group.
    3) There was no difference in performance between boys and girls in all4groups, that is, low and high test anxiety groups under low and high motivating instructions.
    From these results, it seems that test anxiety interferes with learning
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  • 1968 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 121
    Published: June 30, 1968
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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