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AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF STUDENT ATTITUDES IN THE PRIMARY GRADES
Author(s) -
Cohen Sandra R.
Publication year - 1965
Publication title -
ets research bulletin series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2333-8504
pISSN - 0424-6144
DOI - 10.1002/j.2333-8504.1965.tb00970.x
Subject(s) - respondent , psychology , interview , developmental psychology , exploratory research , social psychology , mathematics education , sociology , political science , anthropology , law
An exploratory study was carried out to investigate the feasibility of using a structured projective interview to study the attitudes that children in the primary grades have about school and about teachers. One hundred and twelve first‐ and second‐graders in seven schools were shown a series of specially prepared sketches depicting teacher‐child or child‐child interaction in the classroom; they were asked to tell what had led up to the pictured situation or what would happen next. Responses were studied both in terms of overt content and in terms of underlying attitudes that they were believed to be revealing. Fourteen of 24 items were judged independently by four judges. The other items were judged by the investigator. Judges showed a very high percentage of agreement in their scoring: at least three of the four agreed in 92% of the responses judged. Items that were believed to be tapping aspects of the same underlying attitudes generally showed modest but significant correlations with each other and zero correlation with items believed to be unrelated. Responses to items did not differ according to the sex, grade, or socioeconomic background of the respondent. However, children in an urban slum school gave a greater number of responses expressing violence than did children in other schools. Children showed a high degree of responsiveness to the interview with virtually no refusals to respond; however, in many cases, skilled and patient interviewing was needed to obtain complete protocols. It was concluded that while a technique of this type probably cannot presently be considered suitable for mass administration as part of large‐scale evaluation programs, its further development as a research tool may be warranted.

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