LATER EFFECTS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD INTERVENTION ON THE LEARNING PERFORMANCE OF LOW-INCOME CHILDREN
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine the later effects of an early childhood intervention program on the learning-to-learn skills of 10- to 12-year-old low-income, minority-group children when compared to a matched group of children who were taught by traditional methods. Subjects consisted of 80 children. The experimental group consisted of 40 children who had completed the Interdependent Learning Model Follow Through program, and the control group consisted of 40 neighboring public school children matched according to grade, sex, and age. This investigation utilized a non-traditional assessment methodology, using the Raven's Progressive Matrices in a test-train-retest paradigm and trials to a learning criterion on a perceptual-spatial discrimination task, the Plateau Test, as dependent measures of the impact of this program. Analyses of variance were conducted to determine whether there was a significant difference between the learning performance of the two treatment groups on the Raven's, Plateau, and 1983 California Achievement Test Reading and Mathematics Totals. Pearson product moment correlations between the mean scores of both groups on the non-traditional measures and the academic achievement measures were obtained. Because of the nature of the current study as a field-based program evaluation, an alpha of .10 was used. Results showed that on two of the dependent variables--the mean residualized gain scores of the Raven's Learning Potential Assessment Measure, Sets A, AB, B, and the mean residualized gain scores based on errors to a learning criterion from 90(DEGREES) to 180(DEGREES) transformations of the Plateau Test, the experimental group scored significantly higher than the control group (p < .10). On one dependent measure, the 90(DEGREES) transformation of the Plateau Test, the control group scored significantly higher than the experimental group (p < .05). On all other dependent variables, there were no significant differences between groups. There was no significant difference between groups on the 1983 California Achievement Test Reading or Mathematics Total. Pearson product-moment correlations revealed a stronger relationship between the Plateau Test and the California Achievement Test for the control group, whereas there was a stronger relationship between the Raven's posttest and the achievement measures for the experimental group.
Subject Area
Developmental psychology|African Americans
Recommended Citation
QUILDON, KEITH SYDNEY, "LATER EFFECTS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD INTERVENTION ON THE LEARNING PERFORMANCE OF LOW-INCOME CHILDREN" (1984). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI8423132.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI8423132
