We studied the psychological life space of the children in isolated villages in the light of a “Need Test”, a questionnaire by pencil and paper method.
The questions were directed to (1) what would you like to have,(2) what would you like to do, and (3) what would you like to be, if whatever you wish were possible to he satisfied.
Investigations were held in four remote parts of Tohoku district. The subjects, 777 pupils in total, consisted of 4th year and 6th year pupils of primary schools, and 2nd year pupils of junior high schools. 237 town pupils were examined in the same way for the purpose of comparison.
The result shows that the variability of village children's responses tends to be restricted to matters familiar to them, despite the limitless possibility offered to their answering. For example, in the responses to the first question, we find many trivial articles, such as a “pencil”,“notebook”,“rubber eraser”, which they do not miss at home or at school; and to the second question, many domestic tasks which they are actually doing as daily routine. Such tendency was more eminent in the 4th year children than in the children in upper grades, and more persistent in girls than in boys.
We interpret the result. as showing that the life space of isolated village children is lowly differentiated; and their mental development is conditioned to delay.

View full abstract

It has been reported by forgoing investigators that level of intelligence is generally lower than in rural school chidren.
Our problem. was to ascertain the level of intellectual development of the children and preadolescents in the schools of isolated villages, where the life condition is more disadvantageous than that of average rural villages.
Subjects and Procedure:
Since the verbal test is more difficult than the non-verbal one for rural school children who are placed in an unfavorable condition for language development, we made use of two kinds of intelligence test, Tanaka Intelligence Test A (verbal) and Tanaka Intelligence Test B (non-verbal). Our subjects were primary school children, ranged in age from 9 to 11 years, and pupils of junior high schools, ranged in age from 12 to 15. For the purpose of comparison, the same examination was given to pupils of Sendai City. The number of subjects was 1082 in the rural group and 369 in the city group.
Results:
(1) The average scores obtained for Test B in four villages were invariably about 45 (SD_??_9) of Tscore and this is significantly lower than that of the city grop (T-score was about 51). Differences of the average between villages are rather small and we find no significant difference between farm villages and fishing villages.
(2) The average score of Test A was significantly lower than that of Test B.
(3) An analysis of 14 sub-tests contained in both tests shows that the score of the rurel subjects is lower than that of the city group for almost any of the sub-tests. But it seems that some of fhem (number series, reasoning etc.) are especially difficult for rural subjects and others (maze, substitution etc.) are not.

View full abstract

1) Purpose and Method
This study was administrated by two purposes; one was theoretical, the other practical. The former is to investigate whether the non-similarity between the two learning methods (child-centered group method and teacher-centered method) brings about the difference of the social behavior of children. The latter is to find what different effect arises in social studies.
The method of this study was comparative experiment with the use of two equivalent classes in the 4-th grade of elementary school; one class was taught with the child-centered group method. and the other with the teacher-centered method.
2) Results.
(a) The child-centered group method improved the social behavior of children more than the teacher-centered method.
(b) From the result of sociometric test, we found that the child-centered group method increased the positive friendship of children, and decreased their negative friendship.
(c) In comparison with the learning result of social studies, the child-centered group method did not decrease the learning result of social studies, but increased the social skills.
(d) The child-centered group method had the advantage over the teacher-centered method for the uper intelligence children, and the disadvantage for the lower intelligence ones.
(e) The child-centered group method increased the positive, independent and co-operative attitudes of children, but the teacher-centered method increased their negative, heteronomous and dis cooperative attitudes.
(f) The child-centered group method aroused the learning motivation of children more than teacher-centered method. And this tendency was transferred to the learing of the other school subjects.

View full abstract

In Tohoku Districts of Japan, there are many kinds of dialects. Especially the confusions of vocal sounds, for example, between “ki” and “chi”, or “e” and “i”, are well known.
Among 1449 applicants for admission into Teachers' College (Eukushima Univ.) 45 persons caused the abovesaid confusions (“ki”_??_“chi”) in the dictation tests last year (1954). They wrote KIKAKU for CHIKAKU. Here we want to divide these applicants into 2 groups, the Corrupted Group and the Normal Group. The success or failure for admission were determined by their synthetic results of tests and some other means. 600 were admitted into the College, only 9 included among them from the Corrnpted Troup. Thus we have the following contingency table.
A COMPARISON OF THE APPLICANTS OF CORRUPTED AND NORMAL AS REGARDS THE RESULTS CF EXAMINATION. _??_
From this table we have χ₀²=8.772 as the value of χ² (χ²_0.01<χ²₀). So we must reject the Hypothesis that their success and failure do not depend upon their corruption or normality. Then it is very clear that the dialect or corruption handicapped them.
As to the members of Corrupted Group, they are only from particular regions-AIZU district and the northern part of Fukushima Prefecture, almost all parts of Miyagi Pref. and the southern half of Iwate Pref., but none from other districts. These regions coincide nearly to the dominion of the feudal Lord of Date.
Referring to these results, I gave a Hearing Test this autumn to pupils of 2 schools in (_??_293, _??_287) and 2 schools out (_??_190, _??_176) of these regions.
The latters are so to say as the control groups. Conclusion:
1) The confusion “ki”_??_“chi” was only in Corrupted Group, and not, at all, in other regions.
2) This confusion disappears gradually as classes ascent, and faster in the pupils of higher marks in the same class. In those of lower marks such a confusion is not always diminished,.(Thus I guess the confusion perhaps depends upon the sensory or conscious status of not yet differentiated.)
3) This confusion tends to disappear faster in female than in male pupils.

View full abstract

The problems involved in testing speech-reading ability are studied here from two aspects; first, from that of logical validity of some test procedures, second, from that of applicability of analytical methods to the following two tests. One of these two tests (test A) uses a list of 20 nonsense monosyllables, the other (test B) a list of mutually unrelated 30 words as speech material. The purpose of test B consisting of three sub-tests is to evaluate the effect of word-association upon speech-reading.
Subtest 1: For exemple, a group of subjects (55 lower secondary deaf school pupils) receives a speech word “ito (thread)”, after having been shown a written stimulus ward “hati (needle)”. The speech intelligibility of the word “thread” is counted, and respresented by the symbol “b (thread-needle)”. Similarly “b (water-ice)” etc. are derived.
Subtest 2: The control group (n=54) receives only speech words such as “thread”,“water” etc. The speech intelligibility of each words are represented as “c (thread)”,“c (water)” etc.
Subtest 3: Each subject is made to give an association-response to the word “needle”. The symbol “a (thread-needle)” represents the percent of “thread” responses to “needle”. Similarly,“a (water-ice)” etc. are derived.
results: (see Table 5, 6.)(a, b, c, in two Tables are above-stated symbols.)
Judging from these Tables, the correlation between “a” and “b-c” is doubtful. It is frequently observed that the interacting process of the informations obtained by two different processes, i. e. by the anticipation of succeeding words, and by the visival perception of oral movement, is not a. linear function of these two processes.

View full abstract

In order to classify psychologically the delinquent juveniles, it is in general necessary to find away to reform them according to their personality. First, we started to study, what kind of them can be easily reformed. For this purpose, we have followed up 200 juveniles, who were confined in Yokohama Juvenile Classification Office for their delinquency. There they were subject to various investigations and psychological diagnosis. For these juveniles, we have followed up their behavior after they returned home.
Having studied their prognoses statistically for some period (Table 1), and taking the percentage of those who remained non-delinquent for that period (Fig. 1), we could establish that, one year would be sufficient to distinguish approximately those who can be reformed fromed from those who are very difficult to be reformed. On this basis of 1 year prognoses, we have grouped 200 subjects into three classes (reformed + (+), unreformed -(-), and undetermined ± (±),?). By comparing the results of investigations and psychological diagnosis found for the three classes reffered to above, we could find various factors which have influence upon the prognoses.
PART 1
First, we found the factors of the life history to have a great influences upon the prognoses. These factors are (1) first delinquency at low age (Table 2),(2) long time of delinquency (Table 3),(3) frequency of past confinement into juvenile classification office (Table 4) and reformatory (Table 5),(4) experience of playing gang at school (Table 6) aed of truancy (Table 7),(5) low education, especially neglection of formal schooling (Table 9), experience of leaving home (Table 10) and of wandering (Table 11),(7) experience of having used stimulant addicts (Table 12), and (8) frequent change of employment (Table 13).
These factors are not independent and are related to one another. For example, wandering can be considered to be the extreme case of leaving home. Above all, most of the factors mentioned above are closely related to the length of delinquent history (Table 15). Considering these points more in detail following conclusions have ben derived: (1) The seriousness of delinquent history which can be measured by the frequency of past confinement into juvenile classification office and reformatory, by the use of stimulant addicts, by the school misbehavior, and above all by the length of history of delinquency, is the dominant factor of making difficult the reformation of the delinquent juveniles.(2) Even the delinquent history is not long, the firsrst delinquency at low age seems to make the reformation difficult.(3) Leaving home incuding wandering is another useful scale to predict the diffculty of reformation.(4) Frequency of changing employment is also a scale of predicting the difficulty.(5) The high education makes to some extent the reformation easier.

View full abstract