Human Learning Experimental Subjects Were

Human Learning Experimental subjects were assigned to one each of three experimental treatments, labeled T1, T2, and T3. T1 represented the control group. T2 and T3 received the positive and negative treatments and test afterwards. The subject pool consisted of ninety grade school students approximately nine years old. This sample size was determined to offer the best compromise between economy and measurement parameters given the purpose of the study and the discriminatory power of the statistical procedure to which the data were subjected.

A larger sample size would not have added power to the treatments' ability to create observable variance and would have represented an incremental increase in cost. To simply demonstrate the difference of effect across treatment variables, sub-sample size of thirty was ample. There were some reservations about using subjects in this age range. Prior studies have shown that children under the age of four are much more susceptible to the kind of stumuli used in this study, but are often very different developmentally.

Across children four years old, vocabulary and spelling skills suffer much wider variance even when they hail from a common class than do the same skills across children of nine or ten years age. Most four-year-olds should be able to spell simple words like Mama, Daddy, cat, and so forth, but a significant fraction will be unable to do so, and a significant fraction will be much more advanced and able to spell the names of the days of the week (for instance).

Such broad differences in skill levels will be found in significantly smaller fractions of the population of nine-year-olds. Another cause of concern with four-year-olds is that they are so impressionable that an argument could be made that those assigned to the sample which received the negative stimulus could be harmed psychologically. While there is no guarantee that a subject of nine years age will go unharmed psychologically by the negative stimulus, most research has shown that most of what shapes human personality takes place by the age of seven.

This being the case, the four-year-olds are much more likely to be haunted by the negative stimulus throughout their lives than are the nine-year-olds. Subjects were semi-randomly assigned to each treatment group. Overall, random assignment was the rule except when demographics showed an inequitable distribution of subjects. Materials Materials consisted of the supplies necessary to subject the subjects to the treatments.

For all treatment groups this consisted of the chalk or other implements necessary to write the vocabulary lesson on the board and the materials used by the subjects to record their responses to the test (pencil and a score card). Groups T2 and T3 additionally required the puzzles described in detail below. The puzzles took several forms based on whether they were distributed to the group which received the positive stimulus or negative stimulus.

The puzzle distributed to T2 (positive stimulus) was a100 piece puzzle with a simple geometric design intended to facilitate ease of completion. The puzzle distributed to T3 (negative stimulus) was a 100 piece puzzle of Van Gogh's "Starry Night." It was remarkable in that it was hopelessly impossible to complete as some of the pieces had been replaced with pieces from another puzzle with the same image but different shapes.

In other words, each puzzle had pieces in it with the image of the moon from "Starry Night" but the pieces needed to complete the moon did not fit into the puzzle as a whole. Each puzzle had nine pieces substituted in this way. Technically, the vocabulary words themselves represent an important material in the experiment and they are listed below. Fifteen vocabulary words were chosen which would probably be unfamiliar to nine-year-olds.

Expedient Serendipity Inculcate Explicate Inveterate Hebetude Pulchritude Nimiety Tremulous Hysteresis Pilgarlic Susurration Aretaics Bellicose Jocund Procedures At the beginning of the experiment, subjects were sequestered into adjacent classes on the same side of a school building to minimize environmental differences in performance. Lighting, temperature and other environmental factors were indistinguishable among the rooms. Subjects in T1 were allowed to play with toys for forty-five minutes before the vocabulary lesson began. Subjects in T2 and T3 were given forty-five minutes to complete their puzzles.

At the beginning of the actual treatment, subjects in T2 and T3 were encouraged to ask for assistance if they needed any. T2 subjects were given positive feedback from researchers even when negative feedback was warranted, such as being unable to complete the easy puzzle in forty-five minutes. Researchers were instructed to say encouraging, affirmative things to subjects even when subjects were having no problems with the puzzles, such as "You're making fine progress!" "Good job!" "I know you can do it!" "That's looking great!" And so forth.

Further, researchers were instructed to make these comments loudly enough for them to be overheard by the most distant subject.

T3 subjects' researchers were instructed to give negative feedback at every opportunity, and to make opportunities if none presented themselves with comments such as "You should be smart enough to finish that puzzle at your age!" "I can't believe you're having this much trouble with this puzzle!" "The last class had already finished their puzzles by now!" "I guess you're just not good at puzzles, huh?" Again, researchers were instructed to make these comments loudly enough for all the subjects to hear them.

After the treatment, all groups were subjected to a thirty minute vocabulary lesson and given fifteen minutes to study silently. This study period was followed by collection of the puzzles from groups T2 andT3 and toys from T1. Having their uncompleted puzzles collected reminded the T3s of how poorly they had performed. Having their completed puzzles collected reminded the T2s of how well they had performed. At this point, all groups were given the test, which lasted for ten minutes and consisted of fill in the blank questions.

A choice set of thirty words was included, which included the original vocabulary words plus fifteen distractors. RESULTS Analysis of variance was performed on all groups to measure whether the mean differences in scores were statistically significant. The results showed that positive feedback positively effected subjects' test scores relative to the control group and negative feedback negatively affected subjects' scores relative to the control group. However, the scale of.