CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE
AN INFORMATION PROCESSING TEST:
•'
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS
A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in
Education
with a specialization in
Learning-Reading Disorders
Department of Special Education
by
Elaine G. Steiner
/
June 1976
The Thesis of Elaine G. Steiner is approved:
Philip ?Y'Hansen, Committee Chairman
Date
California State University, Northridge
'ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Gratitude is due many people for the advice and support accorded the author during the process of this study,
but particular appreciation is extended to Dr. Grace Lee
of the Special Education Department, California State University, Northridge, for her review of and suggestions
regarding the test items; Mrs. Jacqueline McGuire for her
cooperation, fortitude and patience in conducting the pilot
administration of the test; Mr. Robert Caveney, Principal
of Bancroft Junior High School, and the English Department
faculty of Bancroft Junior High School for their assistance
to the author in the major administration of the test; and
to Mrs. Virginia Davis for her diligence in typing the
manuscript.
The author is considerably indebted to Dr. Don
Rueter, Media Specialist, Orange Coast College, who not
only made available use of computer facilities, but who
also gave unstintingly of his time and technical knowledge
in the processing of the data.
Particular gratitude is
extended to Dr. Philip Hansen of the Special Education
Department, California State University, Northridge, not
only for his guidance throughout this study, but for the
inspiration provided during the entire Master's program.
Last, and abidingly, appreciation is extended to the
author's husband and sons, without whose understanding and
emotional support this study would not have been possible.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
iii
LIST OF TABLES.
vii
ABSTRACT.
.
. viii
. .
Chapter
I
1
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .
Rationale . . . . . . . .
1
Organizational Structure,
2
Dimensional (Featural) Structure
3
Classificational Structure
(Categorizing) . . . . . .
6
Dimensional Correlation (Redundancy) .
7
Different Theoretical Approaches to
Redundancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
Sequential redundancy .
10
Unordered regularities.
11
Ordered regularities . .
11
Orthography-sequential dependencies .
12
Syntactic constraints . . . . . . . .
13
Selective Attention, Figure/Ground, Cognitive Styl.e, and Cognitive Structure. .
14
16
Summary . .
II
.
18
Procedures for Field Testing.
23
Pilot Study . . . . • .
23
Major Administration .
24
....
24
DEVELOPMENT OF THE INSTRUMENT.
Summary .
iv
Page
III
RESULTS . .
25
Method.
25
Reliability
25
Test Difficulty .
25
Gifted .
.
26
Average.
.
31
31
Below Average . . . . .
It em Diff icu 1 ty .
IV
.
31
.
Test and Item Discrimination . .
32
Distractor Effectiveness . .
33
Summary
33
DISCUSSION
36
Feature Analysis--Letters
37
Orthographic Pattern Prediction .
37
Geometric Figures--Prediction . . . .
38
Geometric Figures--Classification . .
. .
Embedded Figures--Figure/Ground .
.
.
.
.
39
39
Orthographic Sequences--Spelling Patterns .
39
Sentence Meaning--Same/Different.
.
40
Inappropriate Word--Syntactic Sensitivity .
41
Nonsense Sentence--Syntactic Sensitivity.
.
41
Word/Phrase Grouping for Reading.
.
42
Summary and Conclusions .
REFERENCES .
.
.. .
.
.
.
.
.
.
v
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42
.
43
Page
APPENDIX.
51
Form A
52
Form A-1
58
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table
1
2
3
4
5
Page
Types of Structure as Related to Relevant
Research and STIP Items . . . . . . .
4
STIP Items as Related to Theoretical
Background and Related Research . . .
19
Difficulty Index and Net D
(Discrimination Index).
27
Percentage Correct High 27% and Low 27%
Scorers . . . . . .
29
Distractor Analysis STIP, Form A-1 . .
34
vii
ABSTRACT
AN INFORMATION PROCESSING TEST:
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS
by
Elaine G. Steiner
Master of Arts in Education
A learning styles test, the Steiner Test of Information Processing (STIP), was devised to help determine
secondary students' abilities to process internal visual,
orthographic, and syntactic stimulus structure.
It was
hypothesized that such an investigation would help in educational planning.
Literature from different theoretical orientations in
the fields of perception, cognition, linguistics, and
information processing were reviewed.
Organizational uni-
fication was provided by an information processing approach
because it furnished the desired precision in discussion of
internal structure.
Orthographic, geometric, and syntactic
test items were then constructed in areas of dimensional,
classificational, and correlational structure.
viii
After a pilot field test and revisions, the resultant
test, STIP, Form A-1, was administered to a total of 373
junior high school students in gifted, average, and below
average English classes and in reading classes.
Kuder-
Richardson (Formula 80) yielded an internal consistency
reliability of .82.
While most items were easier than the
50% level, the test contained a broad difficulty range, was
moderately-to-strongly discriminating among high and low
scorers on all but two items, and did differentiate well
among students according to class placement.
Data analysis
also upheld the major theoretical bases for the test and
provided indications for instrument utilization.
ix
-
l
CHAPTER I
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
How individuals acquire, transform, and utilize
stimuli to form meaningful patterns has been of concern to
researchers with a variety of theoretical orientations in
the areas of perception, cognition, linguistics, and information processing.
A child's ability to extract order,
structure, regularity, meaning from the redundancies in his
environment has been of considerable interest· to educators.
From this interest a group information processing test, the
St~iner
Test 6f Information
Processin~
(STIP), was devised
by the author to determine whether junior and senior high
school students have successfully learned to process structure, a term seen as being synonymous with both information
and reduction of uncertainty (Bieri, 1971; Broady, 1971;
Garner, 1970, 1974; Suedfeld, 1971; Trabasso, 1973).
Rationale
While structure results from both the stimulus properties themselves and from the organization each individual
perceiver imposes upon the experience, in this group test
no attempt was made to investigate the mediational processes involved,
Steiner's concern, rather, was in
1
L
2
providing a means for determining whether the student can
successfully employ internal stimulus constraints as conveyors of meaning.
Because he has far fewer alternatives
in the test than are provided in real life, the student's
answers should provide relevant clues to his location and
utilization of information.
In many school-related tasks,
the pupil's observation of the conventions involves
response to internal stimulus structure, whether geometric,
orthographic, or syntactic.
Indeed, this would seem to be
involved in his grasping the basic structure of any academic subject.
It was hypothesized that investigating this
aspect of a child's learning style will help teachers to
plan for him educationally,
Organizational Structure
While relevant literature was contributed from different disciplines and theoretical orientations, the unifying organizational structure for this study was taken from
a human information processing approach because of the
precision in discussion of internal stimulus meaning
(Garner, 1970, 1974; Jones, 1974).
Garner (1974), whose
interests lay in investigating the selection and utilization of information inherent in the stimulus, identified
three major types of intrinsic structure:
dimensional
(e.g,, form, position), correlational (a relationship
between two dimensions), and classificational (structure
based on similarities).
The relationships of these types
3
of structure to the literature cited in this chapter are
summarized in Table 1.
Dimensional (Featural) Structure
While the dimensional properties of a stimulus in
themselves provide structure, the choices or levels on a
dimension (e.g,, square or circle) Garner saw as equivalent to the features discussed by other investigators
such as Gibson (1965, 1969), Gibson, Shurcliff, and Yonas
(1970), and Smith (1971).
The dimensional structure pro-
vided by letters, however, becomes relatively unimportant
when a person can encode the visual array as words (Garner,
1974; Gibson, 1965, 1969; Smith, 1971).
By implication,
then, the dimensional structure or featural analysis of
letters is important when the subject is unable to encode
them into words, as would be the case with a beginning or
severely disabled reader.
Although it is not yet known with certitude the actual
features used in human letter identification (Gibson, 1965,
1969; Holmes, 1973; Niles, 1975-76; Smith & Spoehr, 1974;
Smith, 1971), some characteristics such as "break versus
close, line versus curve, and rotations and reversals"
(Gibson, 1965, p. 1067), or "closedness" or "ascenders"
(Smith, 1971, p. 121), or line segments versus circularity
(Smith & Spoehr, 1974) do seem significant.
It is in
learning efficient feature testing strategies (S. K. Reed,
1973) that people become effective sequential processors
Table 1
Types of Structure as Related to Relevant Research and STIP
1.
. 2.
3.
1
Items
Type of Structure
Item
Research
Dimensional (Feature)
Analysis
1' 2
Garner, 1970, 1974; Gibson, 1965, 1969;
Gibson, Shurcliff, & Yonas, 1970;
Hochberg, 1970a, 1970b; Holmes, 1973;
Niles, 1975-76; S. K. Reed, 1973; Smith &
Spoehr, 1974; Smith, 1971; Trabasso, 1973,
Classificational
(Similarity)
7' 8
See items 5, 6; Ingling, 1972; Miller,
1956; Schroder, 1971; Suedfeld, 1971;
See items 3, 4.
Correlational
Sequentional Redundancy
Patterned Sequences
Unordered
Ordered
See items 3, 4.
5, 6
3, 4, 11,
12' 13' 14'
15-26
Bransford & Johnson, 1973; Clark,
Carpenter, & Just, 1973; Garner, 1970,
1974; Goldberg & Schiffman, 1972; Haber,
1969; Jones, 1974; Lerner, 1971; Posner,
1973; S. K. Reed, 1973; Trabasso, 1973;
Vurpillot, 1968.
Allen, 1964; Bormuth, Carr, Manning, &
Pearson, 1970; Bruner, 1973; Bruner,
Goodnow, & Austin, 1956; Chomsky, 1969,
1972; Dawkins, 1975; Gibson, 1965, 1969;
Gibson, Shurcliff, & Yonas, 1970;
Guthrie, 1973; Haber, 1969; Holmes, 1973;
Hutson & Powers, 1974; Kessel, 1970 ;_
w:..
Table 1
(continued)
Types of Structure
Item
Research
Kolers, 1970; Lerner, 1971; Levin &
. Kaplan, 1970; Miller, 1956; McCarthy &
McCarthy, 1969; Myers & Hammill, 1969;
Myklebust, 1973; Niles, 1975-76; Nurss,
,
1967; O'Donnell, 1963; O'Donnell, Griffin,,
& Norris, 1967; O'Hare, 1973; Robertson,
1967; Rosenthal, 1970; Ruddell, 1970;
Samuels, Begy, & Chen, 1975-76;
Schlesinger, 1968; Semel & Wiig, 1975;
Siler, 1973-74; Smith & Spoehr, 1974;
Smith, 1971; Stoodt, 1972; Stotsky, 1975;
Suedfeld, 1971; Vogel, 1974; Weinstein &
Rabinovitch, 1971; Wiig, Semel, & Crouse,
1973; Wiig & Semel, 1975.
4.
Figure/Ground
(Selective Attention)
Cognitive Style
Cognitive Structure
9' 10
Ghent, 1956; Hochberg, 1970a; Jones, 1974;
Kagan, Moss, & Sigel, 1963; Kirk & Kirk,
1971; Lerner, 1971; McCarthy & McCarthy,
1969; Myers & Hammill, 1969; Reed &
Angaran, 1972; Silverman, 1970; Tarver &
Hallahan, 1974; Witkin, Dyk, Faterson,
Goodenough, & Karp, 1962; Witkin, Lewis,
Hertzman, Manchover, Meissner, & Wapner,
1954.
lsteiner Test of Information Processing.
01
6
and synthesizers.
Trabasso (1973) believed that perceptual
events are encoded according to the set of critical features which are perceived and that the system can be
accessed for retrieval through either perceptual or linguistic codes.
According to Hochberg (1970a), it is lin-
guistic convention that determines visual fixation in reading.
While researchers differ, then, on the nature and
utilization of featural structure, they do seem to accept
its importance.
Classificational Structure (Categorizing)
Human information processing ability seems to be
enhanced by a receding or chunking of information into
larger units (Miller, 1956), thereby making possible the
construction of categories.
Basically, the types of fea-
ture analysis discussed above view letter identification
as a categorizing process (Holmes, 1973; Smith, 1971).
Lerner (1971) saw classification of geometric forms as an
important aspect of visual perception.
Furthermore,
Ingling (1972) found that a feature analytic model seems
appropriate in situations involving physical rather than
symbolic categories.
Categorization, she believed, was
the appropriate model when symbolic analysis was required
by the nature of the task.
Combining or organizing in
this fashion involves a sorting and considering of alternative solutions.
In this view, the boundaries involved
in determining the units of information include
_j,-
7
differentiation, or "the number of categories or kinds of
information extracted from a given domain of stimuli"
(Schroder, 1971, p, 242).
In further information proces-
sing terms, once the information has been acquired, it must
be transformed and utilized.
Transformation of information
involves organization and patterning (Suedfeld, 1971) or in
discrimination along and across stimulus dimensions.
This
would seem to approximate in more traditional cognitive
terminology, categorization or classification.
In this
view, categorizing is seen as a response to structure.
Dimensional Correlation (Redundancy)
When correlational structure, the relationship between
two properties of a stimulus, exists, so does redundancy,
which is then a stimulus property independent of the perceiving organism (Garner, 1974).
It is through use of
redundancy, then, that the perceiver reduces uncertainty
(Garner, 1970, 1974; Siegel, 1968; Smith, 1971) through
recognition of such regularity in the stimulus.
If one
views human beings as generators of rule-governed perceptual expectancies (Bruner, 1973; Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin,
1956), who, through utilization of redundancies in the
environment, recode and hence categorize (Miller, 1956;
Siegel, 1968), then investigation of redundancies, whether
distributional or sequential, is of considerable importance
in furthering understanding of human information processing.
8
Indeed, Siegel (1968) found receding to depend upon
identification of pattern regularity through use of sequential redundancy and to be a function of age,
Kirk and Kirk
(1971), in discussing difficulties of learning disabled
youngsters at the automatic level, noted the pervading need
for learning from redundancies in the environment.
Dimen-
sional redundancy was found by Garner (1970) to aid in
information processing both through information combining
and through a "multiple-look process" (p, 356).
Further-
more, Haber (1969) found most of the operations studied in
information processing to involve recoding, while several
other researchers found information processing complexity
to be a function of the number of stimulus dimensions and
the individual's ability to handle them (Bieri, 1971;
Garner, 1970, 1974; Suedfeld, 1971).
One measure of an
individual's cognitive complexity, his ability to differentiate and integrate information, then, would be his ability
to process successfully multidimensional stimuli.
Presum-
ably this would involve chunking and classification through
use of redundancy.
Different Theoretical Approaches
to Redundancy
Major differences were found between those concerned
with visual and with linguistic processing.
While several
investigators (Balow, 1971; Colarusso, Martin, & Hartung,
1975; Saphier, 1973) have indicated a lack of correlation
between specific visual-perceptual-motor skills and
9
long-term school success, an increasing number of researchers have emphasized the importance of nonverbal processes
in thought
(Bransford & Johnson, 1973; Clark, Carpenter, &
Just, 1973; Garner, 1970, 1974; Haber, 1969; Jones, 1974;
Lerner, 1971; Posner, 1973; Trabasso, 1973).
S. K. Reed
(1973) suggested that "visual codes are primarily utilized
in recognition and verbal codes .
. in recall" (p. 131) .
Posner (1973), in refuting the Whorfian hypothesis of
native language preeminence, found further that cultural
changes have led to an increased emphasis on nonverbal
processing, particularly regarding the role of visual
imagery in learning.
Moreover, Clark, Carpenter, & Just
(1973) indicated that the two basic references of perceptual space, ground level and the individual perceiver,
function also as the adjectival descriptions in English,
height and distance.
Therefore, the presumption has been
made that perceptual space is linguistically coded
(Bransford & Johnson, 1973; Clark, Carpenter, & Just,
1973).
This connection between spatial relationships and
syntactic structure was noted primarily in adjectival
(Clark, Carpenter, & Just, 1973), prepositional, pronoun
and subordinating conjunctival (Bransford & Johnson, 1973)
constructions.
Trabasso (1973), however, indicated that perceptual
encoding is not necessarily also linguistically encoded,
but that either code might be employed in processing information.
Children, he concluded, are more likely to rely
10
----------------------- ----··--------------------------·------
upon external environmental regularities, while adults
possess "highly organized internal linguistic and perceptual structures" (p. 449).
Tversky (1969), moreover, found
that "whether either verbal or pictorial material is verbally or pictorially encoded depends on S's anticipation of
what he is to do with the material" (p. 225).
While the
relationships between visual and verbal coding have not at
this point been completely understood, both factors must be
considered in investigations of human information processing, whatever the modality of the memory code.
Another theoretical difference involves the concern
of different investigators with various aspects of dimensional correlation.
Primarily all were concerned with
either featural or sequential redundancy.
It is important
to note, however, that differences in theoretical orienta.tion and terminology present considerable problems in comparing and equating many aspects of research in both dimensional and sequentional redundancy.
Sequential redundancy.
Jones (1974) noted that a
person's handling of patterned sequences tells us much
about his strategies of problem solving.
She defined
sequences as patterns when they can be meaningfully
extended either through surface appearance or through
:ordered regularity.
In distinguishing internal from exter-
,nal meaning, Jones saw "the study of human response to pat.terned sequences •
i
as the study of human ability to
:capture and retain internal meaning" (p. 188) , and
11
indicated further that serial pattern processing underlies
human response to art, music, and language,
It would seem
reasonable to conclude that through the processing of
unordered and ordered patterned sequential structure one
also finds internal meaning in most academic subjects.
Unordered regularities.
Scanning, matching, encoding
strategies have been studied by a variety of investigators.
In processing visual patterns, as required in items 5
through 10 in the test, several search and matching strategies are needed,
Determination of relevant/irrelevant,
same/different, category breadth (S. K. Reed, 1973) are
involved in visual scanning.
Furthermore, Vurpillot (1968)
found coordination of analysis and synthesis in a same/
different visual identification task to be a function of
age.
Problems in visual sequencing and in differing per-
ceptual expectancies have been seen by many researchers
dealing with learning disabilities (Goldberg & Schiffman,
1972; Jordan, 1972; Kirk & Kirk, 1971; Lerner, 1971;
McCarthy & McCarthy, 1969; Myers & Hammill, 1969).
How
successfully a child processes visual patterns would seem
to be an important aspect of his maturation and of his
learning style.
Ordered regularities.
The orthographic and syntactic
items in the test contain ordered regularities.
Modern
linguistic research (Dawkins, 1975; Goodman, 1970; Kolers,
1970; D. W. Reed, 1970; Ruddell, 1970; Samuels, Begy, &
Chen, 1975-76; Smith, 1971; Williams, 1970) indicates
12
the experienced reader, having engaged in a highly selective sampling of the visual array, combines this information with his knowledge of the orthographic, semantic, and
syntactic constraints of the language to construct hypotheses regarding meaning.
Orthography-sequential dependencies.
Various investi-
gators, while disagreeing with each other in detail, have
nonetheless emphasized the importance of morphological and
orthographic constraints.
Gibson (1965, 1969) and Gibson,
Shurcliff, and Yonas (1970) found that sequential dependencies in English form higher-order processing units, or
spelling patterns, and that these structural constraints
are used by more skilled readers even among the deaf.
Furthermore, Gibson (1969) found the detection of orthographic structure to be "a kind of perceptual learning akin
to learning syntax in spoken language" (p. 440).
Somewhat
similarly, in the feature analysis models, the processing
unit is either a letter, an entire word, or a larger entity
(Holmes, 1973; Smith, 1971).
While Smith (1971) did not
discuss intermediate units between letter and word, they
would not necessarily seem precluded by his model.
Closer
to Gibson is the approach of Smith and Spoehr (1974) who
suggested that syllable-like units termed Vocalic Center
Groups are basic higher-order processing units in English.
Samuels, Begy, and Chen (1975-76), in adhering to a
"hypothesis/test" or "sophisticated guessing" model (p.
74), found that better readers do indeed generate target
13
words from fragments and context faster than do poorer
readers, although these researchers did not specify how the
better readers employed either context or partial word
cues.
While further research is obviously necessary,
inclusion of higher-order units on the STIP did seem warranted.
Syntactic constraints.
Many researchers, however they
may differ in theoretical orientation, ranging from traditional to transformational-generative grammar, have
acknowledged the importance of syntactic structure in reading and learning.
Kolers (1970) found that college stu-
dents working with geometrically transformed text tended to
make grammatical substitutions.
Similarly, Weber (1970)
discovered that good first-grade readers, unlike their less
able counterparts, were more likely to correct ungrammatical than grammatical reading errors.
Furthermore, Hochberg
(1970b) discovered that more mature readers found text in
which interword spaces had been filled more·disrupting than
did novices, which would seem to indicate some awareness of
sentence integrity by more experienced readers.
Siler
(1973-74), in testing semantically and syntactically violated sentences with second and fourth graders, found syntactic violations more disruptive.
Furthermore, Hutson and
Powers (1974) found improbable actives and passives easier
for children to comprehend than were probable ones.
Indeed, a pervading relationship has been noted between
ability to recognize structural relations and ability to
14
comprehend written English (Guthrie, 1973; O'Donnell,
1963; O'Donnell, Griffin, & Norris, 1967; Weinstein &
Rabinovitch, 1971).
Phrase boundaries seem particularly
important in this regard.
Schlesinger (1968), working with
eye-voice span (EVS), found that decoding seems to proceed
in chunks "which are syntactically determined" (p. 43).
Ruddell (1970) also thought phrases to be natural processing units in English, as did Levin and Kaplan (1970)
employing both EVS and a modified cloze technique.
Sensitivity to syntactic complexity seemed to follow
a developmental sequence or at least to be a function of
age and/or experience (Allen, 1964; Bormuth, Carr, Manning,
& Pearson, 1970; Chomsky, 1969, 1972; Kessel, 1970;
Myklebust, 1973; Nurss, 1967; O'Donnell, Griffin, & Norris,
1967; O'Hare, 1973; Robertson, 1967; Stoodt, 1972; Stotsky,
1975).
Furthermore, youngsters who have been identified
as learning disabled tend to display a variety of semantic,
syntactic, phonological, and morphological problems
(Rosenthal, 1970; Semel & Wiig, 1975; Vogel, 1974;
Weinstein & Rabinovitch, 1971; Wiig, Semel, & Crouse,
1973; Wiig & Semel, 1975).
Therefore, several items tap-
ping sensitivity to syntactic structure were included on
the test.
Selective Attention, Figure/Ground,
Cognitive Style, and Cognitive Structure
Other important aspects of structural pattern processing are figure/ground relationships (Jones, 1974) in the
15
sense that the pattern is being analyzed into its component
parts.
Evidently the perceiver's determination of figure
and ground was found to result from active perceptual
expectancies, a selection of sensory data, a decision at
the automatic level as to which of alternative schematic
images will be chosen to fit the same contour (Hochberg,
1970a; Kirk & Kirk, 1971; S. K. Reed, 1973).
The struc-
tural properties of embedded figures may well be instrumental in determining the organization of the perceptual
field (Ghent, 1956; Reed & Angaran, 1972).
Ghent (1956)
found that figures having shared contours were more difficult to locate than were those with intersecting contours.
Further dimensional complexity on reversible figures was
found to involve knowing where to fixate.
Which of the
reversible figures one sees, which contours are encoded as
figure and which as ground, seems to depend upon expectation in terms of the edge with which one tends to begin
his fixation (Hochberg, 1970a).
Reversal, then, would
occur when active looking or attention is relaxed.
If the term selective attention is accepted to mean
"responses which determine which elements in a stimulus
field exert a dominant influence on the perceiver"
(Silverman, 1970, p, 62), then the greater extent to which
one is interference-prone will determine a person's difficulty in maintaining distinct figure/ground relationships,
Interference would presumably involve both conflicting elements in the stimulus and in the dimensions of inner
16
distractibility in the individual person.
Silverman (1970)
cited Messick and Fritsky as having identified two factors
of
s~lectiveness
of attention, separation of the configura-
tion into figure and ground, and overcoming of irrelevant
stimuli (distractions) on such tasks as the rod and frame
test.
Some selectiveness of attention tests, then, seem
to involve an ignoring of what is perceived as background
while others tend to require that normal figural material
be ignored as ground,
Problems in attentional processes were cited in discussions of learning disabilities (Lerner, 1971; McCarthy
& McCarthy, 1969; Myers & Hammill, 1969; Tarver & Hallahan,
1974).
Furthermore, degrees of ability to cope with embed-
ding were found significant in measures of field-dependence,
reading ability, and reflectivity-impulsivity (Kagan, Moss,
& Sigel, 1963; Keogh & Donlon, 1972; Witkin, Dyk, Faterson,
Goodenough, & Karp, 1962; Witkin, Lewis, Hertzman,
Manchover, Meissner, & Wapner, 1954).
Therefore, two
embedded figures tasks were included in the STIP.
Summary
A learning styles test based upon an information
processing model was devised to help determine the degree
of success with which secondary students can process
internal stimulus structure,
Despite differences in theory
and terminology, relevant research has also been cited from
the fields of perception, cognition, and linguistics with
17
the intention of providing a firmer basis for educational
planning.
CHAPTER II
DEVELOPMENT OF THE INSTRUMENT
The literature reviewed in Chapter I yielded the elements for designing a learning styles test.
In the test,
STIP, formulated on an information processing model, each
item was related to one or more types of structural meaning.
Table l, previously cited, supports this relationship
as well as listing the relevant research.
Table 2, intro-
duced in this chapter, indicates the relationship of each
test item to applicable theory and research;
Twenty-six items, encompassing both visual and linguistic internal stimulus constraints, were constructed for
administration to secondary students (Table 2).
In inter-
preting these data, one should be aware that processing of
items 5 and 6 involves two dimensions, a more difficult
problem than is involved in one dimension, and that there
is evidence that sensitivity to task difference is important.
Jones (1974) found that "pattern prediction, pattern
reconstruction and recognition and judgment tasks vary in
nature and complexity.
Prediction is most demanding; the
judgment task least demanding" (p. 189).
Because this was
a group, machine scored test, there were no reproduction
items.
At a basic level, items 1, 2, 7, and 8 involved
18
Table 2
S'riP1 Items as Related to Theoretical Background and Related Research
Item
No.
Item Type
Type of Structure
Relevant Theories
l' 2
Letters
Dimensional (Feature)
Analysis
Symmetrical Redundancy
Relevant/Irrelevant Cues
Garner, 1970, 1974; Gibson,
1965, 1969; Gibson, Shurcliff,
& Yonas, 1970; Hochberg, l970a,
1970b; Holmes, 1973; Niles,
1975-76; S. K. Reed, 1973;
Smith & Spoehr, 1974; Smith,
1971; Trabasso, 1973.
3' 4
Next Nonsense
Word
Sequential Redundancy
Pattern Prediction
Recoding (Chunking)
Bruner, 1973; Bruner, Goodnow,
& Austin, 1956; Haber, 1969;
Jones, 1974; Kirk & Kirk, 1971;
Lerner, 1971; Miller, 1956;
McCarthy & McCarthy, 1969;
Myers & Hammill, 1969; Siegel,
1968; Suedfeld, 1971.
5, 6
Next Geometric
Figure
Visual Codes
Bransford & Johnson, 1973;
Clark, Carpenter, & Just, 1973;
Garner, 1970, 1974; Goldberg &
Schiffman, 1972; Haber, 1969;
Jones, 1974; Lerner, 1971;
Posner, 1973; S, K. Reed, 1973;
Trabasso, 1973; Vurpillot, 1968,
Sequential Redundancy
See items 3, 4.
Pattern Prediction
See items 3, 4.
Related Research
t-'
tO
Table 2
(continued)
Item
No.
7' 8
Item Type
Categorizing
Geometric Figures
Type of Structure
Relevant Theories
Related Research
Visual Codes
Classificational Structure
(Categorizing)
Recoding (Chunking)
See items 5, 6;
Ingling, 1972; Miller, 1956;
Schroder, 1971; Suedfeld, 1971;
See items 3, 4.
9' 10
Embedded Figures
Figure/Ground
Selective Attention
Cognitive Style
Field Dependence/
Independence
Impulsivity/Reflectivity
Ghent, 1956; Hochberg, 1970a;
Jones, 1974; Kagan, Moss, &
Sigel, 1963; Kirk & Kirk, 1971;
Lerner, 1971; McCarthy &
McCarthy, 1969; Myers & Hammill,
1969; Reed & Angaran, 1972;
Silverman, 1970; Tarver &
Hallahan, 1974; Witkin, Dyk,
Faterson, Goodenough, & Karp,
1962; Witkin, Lewis, Hertzman,
Manchover, Meissner, & Wapner,
1954.
11' 12'
13' 14
Spelling
Patterns
Sequential Dependencies
Orthographic Constraints
Gibson, 1965, 1969; Gibson,
Shurcliff, & Yonas, 1970;
Holmes, 1973; Samuels, Begy, &
Chen, 1975-76; Smith & Spoehr,
1974; Smith, 1971; Niles, 197576.
15' 16
Meaning
Same/Different
Syntactic Sensitivity
Allen, 1964; Chomsky, 1969,
1972; Guthrie, 1973; Hochberg,
l970a, 1970b; Hutson & Powers,
1:\J
o·
Table 2
(continued)
Item
No.
Item Type
Type of Structure
·Relevant Theories
Related Research
1974; Kessel, 1970; Kolers,
1970; Levin & Kaplan, 1970;
Myklebust, 1973; Nurss, 1967;
O'Donnell, 1963; O'Donnell,
Griffin, & Norris, 1967;
Rosenthal, 1970; Ruddell, 1970;
Schlesinger, 1968; Semel &
Wiig, 1975; Siler, 1973-74;
Vogel, 1974; Weinstein &
Rabinovitch, 1971; Wiig, Semel,
& Crouse, 1973; Wiig & Semel,
1975.
Probable/Improbable
Active/Passive
Hutson & Powers, 1974.
Coordinate Constructions
Bormuth, Carr, Manning, &
Pearson, 1970; Robertson, 1967;
Stoodt, 1972.
Subordinate Constructions
Bormuth, Carr, Manning, &
Pearson, 1970; Chomsky, 1969,
1972; Kessel, 1970; Myklebust,
1973; Nurss, 1967; O'Donnell,
Griffin, & Norris, 1967;
O'Hare, 1973; Stotsky, 1975;
Vogel, 1974.
!:..;)
1-'
Table 2
(continued)
Item
No.
Item Type
Type of Structure
Relevant Theorie~
Related Research
Deletion Transformations
Chomsky, 1969, 1972;
O'Donnell, Griffin & Norris,
1967; See also Subordinate
Constructions.
17' 18
Inappropriate
Word
Syntactic Sensitivity
See items 15, 16;
Guthrie, 1973.
19-24
Nonsense
Sentences
Syntactic Sensitivity
Morphological Constraints
Syntactic Constraints
See items 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16,
25' 26
Word/Phrase
Grouping for
Reading
EVS
Dawkins, 1975; Levin
1970; Ruddell, 1970;
Schlesinger, 1968.
Phrase Boundaries
& Kaplan,
1 steiner Test of Information Processing,
1.\J
1.\J
23
recognition (similarity/differences), and items 3, 4,
5~
and 6 involved prediction.
Procedures for Field Testing
Pilot Study
The pilot run of STIP, Form A, was administered
January 28 and 29, 1976 to 67 sixth graders at a suburban
lower- to middle-middle class, all Caucasian elementary
school.
Of the total students, 14 had been identified as
gifted, and 6 as EH.
Forty-six students had not been cate-
gorized and hence were presumed to be normal, while for
one student there were no data.
As a result of the ini-
tial administration, four questions were changed.
Item 2,
u n s, concerned with open/closed dimensions, was changed
in STIP, Form A-1, to n s u because it was suspected that
students' initial set had been to form a word.
The change
to two dimensions in item 5 was made because it was
believed that the simplicity of the original item had been
caused by its having been constructed on only one dimension.
errors.
Items 9 and 16 were altered to correct clerical
Directions for the nonsense sentence (items 9-24)
were clarified.
With corrections for these items,
internal consistency reliability based on a KuderRichardson formula was calculated at .58.
24
Major Administration
The major administration of STIP, Form A-1, was made
on March 1, 1976 at a Los Angeles area junior high school
to 373 students:
91 were identified as gifted, 85 as
reading disabled or low ability, and 197 as average.
The
racial-ethnic balance of the school was 59% Caucasian,
14% Black, 14% Spanish surname, 11% Asian, 1% Indian, and
1% other races.
Summary
The literature reviewed resulted in the construction
of 26 items testing students' abilities to process internal
structure orthographically, geometrically, and syntactually.
Analysis of the pilot administration to 67 sixth graders
(STIP, Form A) produced several changes evident in the
resultant test
(STIP, Form A-1) administered to 373 students
at an ethnically integrated junior high school.
------
CHAPTER III
RESULTS
Method
A program was written in A Programming Language (APL)
to score the 373 Scantron answer sheets, with much of the
data analysis performed on an IBM computer 370, Model
155-2.
This computer analysis yielded frequency range,
discrimination index (Net D), response frequencies, and
nondistractor indicators (based upon a minimum response of
.05) for the entire group and also for the gifted, average,
and below average subgroups as determined by the students'
placement in gifted, average, and below average English
classes or reading classes.
Further descriptive statisti-
cal data were obtained which yielded a mean of 18.64, a
median of 19.00, and a standard deviation of 4.83.
Reliability
Kuder-Richardson (Formula 80) internal consistency
reliability was calculated at .82 for STIP, Form A-1, a
considerable improvement over that found for the pilot
administration (STIP, Form A).
Internal consistency of
the STIP, Form A-1, was further upheld by item analysis.
25
26
Test Difficulty
Correct responses for the entire group of 373 ranged
from 31 to 88% (Table 3), with a mean item difficulty index
of 71%.
Item 2 (n s u) proved to be the least effective
item in the test, and, except for the low-scoring 27% of
the below average group, the most difficult.
When item 2
was removed from the tabulation, the range was 54 to 88%
correct.
For the upper-scoring 27%, the correct responses
ranged from 48 to 100% (omitting item 2, 79 to 100%) with
a mean difficulty index of 92%.
In the lower-scoring 27%,
correct responses extended from 25 to 70% (omitting item 2,
27 to 70%), with a mean difficulty index of 47% (Table 4).
Indices were also calculated for the examinees according
to their class placement in gifted, average, and below
average groups.
Gifted (N = 91)
Correct responses in the gifted classes (Table 3)
varied between 35 and 93% (omitting item 2, 55 to 93%), and
yielded a mean difficulty index of
82%~
Of the gifted, the
top 27% scorers displayed a range of 56 to 100% correct
responses (omitting item 2, 84 to 100%), with a mean of
96%, while the low 27% scorers evinced a range of 32 to
88% correct responses (omitting item 2, 36 to 88%), with a
mean difficulty index of 65% (Table 4).
Table 3
Difficulty Index and Net D (Discrimination Index)
Total
Item
Average
·Net D
DI
(N = 373) (N - 101)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Hi-Lo
Hi-Lo
%
%
76
31
65
80
73
54
73
85
88
86
67
61
84
75
80
80.
87
62
72
59
66
75
Net D
DI
(N - 197) (N = 54)
.38
.23
.56
.49
.50
.43
.40
,35
.30
• 24
.42
.41
.30
.46
.46
.46
,31
.44
. 70
.59
.68
. 56
76
29
65
82
72
55
74
83
88
88
68
62
85
73
81
84
90
59
73
54
64
74
,30
.24
,48
.41
.41
.52
.43
. 37
,33
.24
.46
.39
.20
• 46 .
.39
.30
.24
.24
.57
.59
. 57
. 52
Below Average
Gifted
Hi-Lo
Hi-Lo
DI
Net D
(N - 91) (N - 25)
%
84
35
82
88
91
55
78
93
91
90
67
68
90
89
89
91
93
84
87
78
85
91
.28
.24
.40
.28
.16
.48
,32
.12
.20
.16
.56
,60
.24
.20
.24
,24
,20
.24
.32
.36
.44
.20
DI
Net D
(N - 85) (N - 23)
%
66
33
48
65
58
49
66
79
84
75
65
53
78
64
68
58
75
46
54
51
49
59
.48
.26
. 74
,61
.48
.39
,48
.48
,30
. 39
,48
,35
.52
.48
. 57
.52
.52
,52
,83
,39
.65
.61
1.\:)
"'-1
1~-
Table 3
(continued)
Total
Item
Average
Hi-Lo
DI
Below Average
Gifted
Hi-Lo
Hi-Lo
Hi-Lo
Net D
DI
Net D
DI
Net D
DI
Net D
= loTr ____ [N-= 197)~0{-,;0.f)-~-(N-=~91)-T:N--;;--25Y---~(N =- 85)~lN.;;23J
(N-=~373}~-N
%
79
66
77
72
%
88
78
89
85
%
68
53
58
55
23
24
25
26
%
79
66
76
71
Mean
71%
72%
82%
61%
Range
31-88%
29-90%
35-93%
33-84%
.43
.51
. 59
.67
. 37
.50
.52
.65
.24
.56
.28
.40
.65
.43
.61
.65
DI (Difficulty) =% of students answering correctly.
Net D (Discrimination) =Difference in% of Hi 27% and Lo 27% answering correctly.
i
l\:)
00
Table 4
Percentage Correct High 27% and Low 27% Scorers
Item
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Total
Hi 27% Lo 27%
%
91
48
90
99
96
79
93
100
98
94
88
84
96
90
96
98
100
88
98
93
95
98
%
53
25
34
50
46
37
53
65
68
70
47
44
66
45
50
52
69
45
28
34
27
42
Average
Hi 27% Lo 27%
%
89
46
87
98
91
89
94
98
100
96
91
85
94
91
96
96
100
76
93
89
89
98
%
59
22
39
57
50
37
52
61
67
72
44
46
74
44
57
67
76
52
35
30
31
46
Gifted
Hi 27% Lo 27%
%
96
56
100
100
100
84
96
100
100
96
100
96
100
96
96
100
100
92
96
96
100
100
%
68
32
60
72
84
36
64
88
80
80
44
36
76
76
72
76
80
68
64
60
56
80
Below Average
Hi 27% Lo 27%
%
83
43
91
87
87
70
87
100
97
91
87
70
100
87
97
83
100
70
96
74
91
87
%
35
17
17
26
39
31
39
52
65
52
39
35
48
39
39
31
48
17
13
35
26
26
l\:)
tO
Table 4
(continued)
)rtem
i
Total
Average
Gifted
Below Average
Hi 27%
Lo 27%
Hi 27%
Lo 27%
Hi 27%
Lo 27%
Hi 27%
Lo 27%
23
24
25
26
%
93
90
99
97
%
50
39
40
30
%
94
91
100
98
%
57
41
48
33
%
100
92
96
100
%
76
36
68
60
%
91
74
83
87
%
26
31
22
22
Mean
92%
4 7%
65%
82%
33%
--·~
-------------·~---~----·--------------------------------
Range
48-100%
25-70%
91%
46-100%
68%
22-76%
96%
56-100%
32-88%
43-100%
13-65%
w
0
31
Average (N
=
197)
The average group's correct replies ranged between 29
and 90% (omitting item 2, 54 and 90%), with a mean difficulty index of 72% (Table 3).
Scores in the high 27% group
varied between 46 and 100% (omitting item 2, 76 to 100%)
and yielded a mean of 91%.
The lower 27% scorers varied
between 22 and 76% correct responses (omitting item 2, 30
and 76%)
(Table 4) .
Below Average (N
=
85)
Students in below average English classes and reading
classes responded correctly from 33 to 84% of the time
(omitting item 2, from 46 to 84%)
difficulty was 61%.
(Table 3).
Mean item
Range in the high scoring 27% was 43
to 100% (omitting item 2, 70 to 100%), with a mean of 82%.
For the low scoring 27%, the range was 13 to 65%, with a
mean difficulty index of 33% (Table 4).
For this group,
item 19, not 2, was most difficult.
Item Difficulty
Items differed somewhat in difficulty among groups
(Tables 3 and 4), but all except the low 27% in the below
average group found item 2 the most difficult.
This low
scoring group encountered slightly more problems with the
first nonsense sentence item (item 19).
Generally, the
syntactic items proved difficult, as did the nonsense
spelling patterns (items 11 and 12) and the geometric items
32
involving prediction (items 5 and 6) as well as the
stronger geometric item involving categorization (item 7).
The second word grouping question (item 26) presented more
difficulty than the first
(item 25), particularly among low
scorers.
Test and Item Discrimination
STIP, Form A-1, discriminated well between high and
low 27% scorers (Tables 3 and 4) among the seventh, eighth,
and ninth graders to whom it was given.
The only weak dis-
criminators were questions two (the second feature analysis
question) and nine (the first embedded figures item).
Items 3 (orthographic sequence), 6 (geometric prediction),
11, 12 (nonsense spelling patterns), 20, 21, 24 (nonsense
sentence), and 26 (word groupings) proved discriminating
for gifted, average, and below average groups.
scores, however, were revealing,
Subgroup
Eight items were moderate-
to-strong discriminators except for the gifted group:
4
(orthographic sequence), 5 (geometric prediction), 7 (geometric categorizing), 14 (spelling patterns), 15 (same/
different sentence meaning), 19, 23 (nonsense sentence),
and 25 (word groupings).
Conversely, seven items were dis-
criminating for the below average group only:
1 (feature
analysis), 8 (geometric categorizing), 10 (embedded figures), 13 (spelling patterns), 16 (same/different sentence
meaning), and 17 and 18 (inappropriate word).
33
Distractor Effectiveness
Degrees of difficulty and discrimination were, of
course, related to degree of distractor effectiveness.
On
the whole, strongly discriminating items contained strong
distractors and weakly discriminating items contained weak
distractors (Table 5) for the relevant groups.
Where this
relationship was not evident (items 14, 18, 20, and 24),
other explanations must be sought.
Summary
STIP, Form A-1, displayed high reliability, a broad
difficulty range, and effective discrimination between high
and low scoring groups.
Table 5
Distractor Analysis STI~, Form A-1
Distractors
Item
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
A
B
c
-
G A L
G A L
*
GAL
A L
G A L
A L
A L
L
GAL
*
*
-*
-
*L
G A
A L
G A L
L
-
*
L
A L
*
L
G A L
-
-
A L
*
GAL
-
L
*
*
A
-
G A L
G A L
L
L
-
L
L
A L
-
L
A L
L
G A L
GAL
A L
*L
A
G
*
L
A L
D
E
A
B
c
D
A L
A L
A L
A
G A L
-
-*
G
G
G A
*
*
*
A
G
G A L
G
G
G
G
G A L
G
-*
-
A L
G A L
G A L
L
A L
L
G A L
G A L
G
Nond ist ract ors
G
*
*A
*
*-
L
GAL
GAL
*
GAL
L
-
GAL
-
*
A
G A L
G A
GAL
-
*
L
A
A L
*
-*
G
-
*
-
-
-
*
A
A
G A
A
G A
L
L
L
L
L
L
G
L
G A L
G A L
GAL
G A
-
*
A
*
G
G A
-
*
G A
G
G A L
G
-
-
-
-
G A
G A L
*
G A
G
G A
G
G A L
*
G
G
G
G
G
G
G
A
A L
A
A L
A
*
A
G
G
*
-*
*
*
A
E
L
G A L
G A L
G
G
G
*
G A
G A L
G
G
G
G
G
G
*
A
A
A
A
A
L
L
L
L
L
L
*
G A
G A
G
G
*
A
L
G
*
L
G
*
w
H:>.
Table 5
(continued)
Item
23
24
25
26
Nondistractors
Distractors
A
B
-
L
GAL
GAL
G A
-A L
-
G
c
D
E
A
*L
A
-
GAL
*
A
A L
-*
*
A
G A L
G A L
G
G A L
-
B
G A
-
G
L
c
D
*
*
GAL
G A L
G
L
*
E
*L
G A
L
G
lsteiner Test of Information Processing.
G = Gifted group
A = -Average group
L = Below average group
* = Correct response
w
CJl
CHAPTER IV
DISCUSSION
It was hypothesized that investigating secondary
students' ability to process internal stimulus structure
would help in planning for them educationally.
Data
obtained from 373 junior high school students' scores,
particularly in relation to the examinees' placement in
gifted, average, and below average English classes or in
reading classes, corroborated the hypothesis in that students doing better in school also tended to perform better
on the STIP.
The test yielded high reliability, discrim-
inated well between high and low scorers on most items, and
indicated a broad difficulty range, although largely above
the 50% level.
Choices which proved to be weak distractors
(Table 5) should be strengthened, except in instances where
their intended use would be to help identify gifted or
below average students or to help predict various aspects
of academic achievement.
Generally, as noted by Jones
(1974), prediction items, particularly questions three,
five, and six, did prove more difficult than the classification items, 7 and 8, with the exception of item 5 among
the gifted.
Analysis of the data obtained on the individ-
ual items in the STIP, Form A-1, upheld the internal
36
37
consistency of the test and provided indications for possible utilization of the instrument.
Feature Analysis--Letters
(Items 1 and 2)
Because item 1 (line/curve) was moderately difficult
for and discriminating for the below average group, it
should be strengthened and retained, particularly in view
of the findings that featural analysis of letters is important for people unable to encode them into words (Garner,
1974; Gibson, 1965, 1969; Smith, 1971).
While the item did
not permit encoding into words, nonetheless it may have
been the disabled readers who encountered difficulty with
this question.
Item 2 (open/closed) should be either
revised or discarded.
Orthographic Pattern Prediction
(Items 3 and 4)
Item 3, in which the sequential pattern was varied
along two internal dimensions, proved moderately-tostrongly difficult and discriminating,
Distractors D.
(DABAT) and E (DARAT) were particularly strong, with E the
only distractor appealing to the gifted group,
Both
choices did involve internal changes along two dimensions,
although the incorrect ones.
Choice C (DABAR), which
varied externally on one dimension from the second word in
the stem (DABAT), was appealing to the average and below
average groups.
38
Item 4, although relatively easy, discriminated well
for all but the gifted group, for whom no choices functioned as distractors.
In addition to strengthening the
distractors, especially C and D, consideration should be
given to the probability that the stem, involving variation
along two external dimensions, presented an easier problem
than internal or internal/external variation.
Geometric Figures--Prediction
(Items 5 and 6)
Item 5, which involved two separate indications
(arrow and opening) of the external clockwise pattern
sequence, was easier than item 6 in which the visual pattern sequence varied along both internal and external
dimensions.
Item 5 discriminated for all but the gifted
group, for whom none of the choices functioned as distractors, while choice A, possibly because of its complicated appearance, was somewhat appealing to the below
average group.
Test question six was effectively difficult
and discriminating for all groups.
Choice E, which dif-
fered along one dimension from the last figure in the stem,
was, as expected, the most effective distractor.
Again,
these items tended to indicate a greater difficulty for
internal or internal/external variation than for external
variation.
39
Geometric Figures--Classification
(Items 7 and 8)
Item 7, which varied along two dimensions (shape and
color), proved more difficult than did item 8, which varied
along one dimension (shape).
Adding another dimension,
such as size or color, would obviously strengthen the stem,
although the item in its present form was effectively discriminating for the below average group.
Item 7, while not
difficult, was effectively discriminating for most groups.
Embedded Figures--Figure/Ground
(Items 9 and 10)
Data for both embedded figures items indicated a need
for
d~stractor
strengthening.
The effective foils (choice
C, it·em 9, and choices D, and, for the below average group,
B,
it~em
10) involved overlapping, a partial explanation of
their· difficulty (Ghent, 1956).
Orthographic Sequences--Spelling Patterns
(Items 11, 12, 13, and 14)
The two nonsense word items (items 11 and 12) were
moderately difficult and discriminating for most groups,
although item 12 was highly discriminating for the gifted
group.
Item 11 could be strengthened by removing words
from within distractors B and C.
In item 12 the most
attractive distractors, B and C (klipr and laqr) may have
been selected on an auditory basis.
Possibly the direc-
tions should be changed to "Which of these looks most like
40
a regular English word?"
The ease of items 13 and 14 was both intended and
expected.
ing.
Item 13 would benefit from distractor strengthen-
While most students recognized that a spelling pattern
was being sought, nonetheless choice A (urgl) should be
changed so that it is not a word-part.
Sentence Meaning--Same/Different
(Items 15 and 16)
Not surprisingly, items 15 and 16 were most difficult
for and discriminated most effectively for students in reading classes and below average English classes.
Improbable
actives and passives, found by Hutson and Powers (1974) to
be easier to comprehend than probable ones, attracted students in
~elow
average classes in item 15, choice C (irre-
versible active) and members of both average and below
average classes in item 16, choice B, which, while a probable passive, was improbably in that it reversed the meaning.
Choice D, item 16 (improbable active) did not func-
tion as a distractor, however, probably because of its
obvious implausibility.
The difficulties presented by
coordinating and subordinating connectives (Bormuth, Carr,
Manning, & Pearson, 1970; Chomsky, 1972; Robertson, 1967;
Stoodt, 1972) was upheld by the appeal of choices D, item
15 and C, item 16.
The easy to/hard to construction,
,choice E, items 15 and 16 (Chomsky, 1969, 1972; Kessel,
;1970) ·provided difficulties for some members of the below
41
Inappropriate Word--Syntactic Sensitivity
(Items 17 and 18)
Both items were more difficult for and more discriminating for those in the below average group.
Choice A,
item 17 (blooming) attracted some in the below average
group, probably because of the unfamiliarity of the participial construction.
Likewise, the relative unfamiliarity
of the initial adverbial construction may have accounted
for the appeal to several groups of choices A (happily) and
B (quickly) in item 18.
Nonsense Sentence--Syntactic Sensitivity
(Items 19-24)
The nonsense sentence questions were among the most
difficult and discriminating in the test.
Questions and
concerns raised during the administration of the test indicated that many students had never before encountered nonsense sentences.
Therefore these items probably did mea-
sure fairly accurately the examinees' sensitivity to many
aspects of English grammar.
In several instances (choice
B, item 19; choice B, item 20; choice A, item 21; choice B,
item 22; choice B, item 24) distractor popularity was based
at least partially upon grammatical similarity, a finding
consistent with that of Kolers (1970).
42
Word/Phrase Grouping for Reading
(Items 25 and 26)
These items also presented problems for examinees in
reading classes and below average English classes, although
the items were generally discriminating for all groups with
the exception of the gifted in item 25.
For question 25,
all distractors functioned well except E, which twice violated the determiner/noun relationship.
In item 26, sen-
tences B and C, which interrupted the auxiliary verb,
proved particularly effective.
Choices D, item 25 and E,
item 26 were designed to appeal to word readers.
The
expectation that phrase boundaries would function as reading units (Levin & Kaplan, 1970; Ruddell, 1970; Schlesinger,
1968) for the better readers was upheld by the difficulty
pattern of the items (Tables 3 and 4).
Summary and Conclusions
The STIP, Form A-1, was found to have a high reliability coefficient (Kuder-Richardson [Formula 80)
.82) and an
effective difficulty and discrimination range.
Its inter-
nal consistency was upheld by the item analysis and the consistent extent to which the results upheld the expectations
derived from the theoretical underpinnings of the test.
REFERENCES
43
44
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Bormuth, J. R., Carr, J., Manning, J., & Pearson, D. Children's comprehension of between- and within-sentence
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Bransford, J.D., & Johnson, M. K. Consideration of some
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Dawkins, J. Syntax and readability. Newark, Del.:
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Inter-
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1072.
Learning to read.
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46
Holmes, D. L. The independence of letter, word, and meaning identification in reading.
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McCarthy, J. J., & McCarthy, J. F.
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47
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(2)' 198-202.
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Forging ahead in reading.
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48
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Information processing as a personality
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New
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50
Weinstein, R., & Rabinovitch, M.S. Sentence structure and
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Wert, J. E., Neidt, C. 0., & Ahmann, J. S. Statistical
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Wiig, E., & Semel, E. Productive language abilities in
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APPENDIX
51
52
STI.P
Form A
Introtluetion
You are ,oin, to take a test tellinc ;bout
learn.
Your answers
the questions the
enjoy tioinc this.
~ill
w~y
you
~ays
in vhich you
not affect your tratie in school.
vo~a p~y
a ,ame.
we hope that you vill
Go aheatl at a comfortable speea.
able to finish in one perio&.
AnsYer
You sho<utl be
53
l.
cr~
Caoose the 1etter !rom
letters in
cr•up
2 that
~
the most like
l.
~2
~ (B)
s
0
Group l
1. A I Z
(A)
0
z. un s
W>ult vorti shoul.ti come
. (B)
DCBAT
(A)
OOBAR
4.
BAWC
DAXE
~)
AECD
~nat
5.
.(C)
N
(D)
.(11) (C)
(P)
D
B
c
Q
n~?
. (C)
DABAR
.
(E)
DA.RAT
(D)
DAB.\T
FAYO
.(11)
HAZI
~)
J.J.MI
~)
LAWN
~)
BACK
shoula the next pieture look like?
0 fJ
[J
L~l
LJ LD 0 OJ
(A}
b.
all the
(C)
(B)
(D)
(:E:)
ffi (f) !gl
j
ffi 6J
a
0
o
0
(A)
7; Which item belon;s vitA the
•
0
(D)
!ollovinc·pietures?
0
00
(A)
(C)
(B)
Ia ~0 I
(B)
II
(C)
(D)
(E)
I~J
(E)
54
2-.
8.
Whiell itu beleats Yitll tl\e !'ollovin' pi1turea?
D 60
o • o
D
(C)
(D)
(A)
(B)
Whi•h o! the !'ollovin=:
i'i~es ~
(E)
Nar in figure 1?
9.
~
(A) .
10.
<> D
(B)
>~-----~< CJ
(C)
(E)
(D)
~
~
!iprel
DZ6~0
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(R)
55
------- - -------------------------~~~;
3.
Which ot the5e ia most like a re(Ular Enclish •or«?
ll.
12.
,~}
.('.A,)
ntic
•kincJ.
(A}
·.Hn
lkil
klipr
(c,);
hcin
'.(c·)
lailr
,u;)
,(D)
6-linek
·.(D")
llis
ntih.c
·(g)
rw
'N'hi•h of these are parts o! normal English vorti.s?
13.
(A)
urcJ.
14.
eich
;cs>
(A)
lut.a
I~
,(B)
till(
(C)-
(D)
chei
he;ei
~n>
(.:&}
toul
icht
:lru
.(l:j)
.(}:)
ghit
vhi•h of the tollowinc sets of sentences is the me<ninc of sentence 1
the Sa!l'e as the meanin' ot sentenee 2'·?
15.
(A)
!l.) 'fhe boy hit the ball.
t2) The boy- vas hit by the ball.
~)
(l) 1-ir. Jones wrote a book.
(~)
.(c)
A book was written by
Mr. Jones •
~ ) The horse pulle« the wa ~:on.
(2.) The wagon pulleti. the horse.
_,
'------------
56
-----------------·---------·------ ------- -- ----·----------
- ·-------- -----------------
----------~----~-------~--------
4.
(D)
(~)Although
it was ra~~n,, ~e eancellea the game.
(2) Beeause it was raining, we eancellea the grme.
(E)
(1)
\,2 )
The game is e:-sy to •..r.i.n.
The game lfas e:~sil7 \ll\aerstoct.
16.
(A)
\l) George askeq • question.
(2) A question w2s zskea by George,
(B)
ear culled the trusk.
~2) ·:-he truek was pullet by ti~e car.
\1) The
(C)
(1) 1sie looke!l at the rainbow, ami it was d~rk.
(2.) 1-!e looked !.er the rainbow, but it 11:-.s dark.
(D)
(1) The •.tocaeutter cut down the tree.
(~) 'l'he tree cut llo•m the •t~ooc!c:utter.
(E)
\1 ) The song is hart! to sing.
@. ) The son& ceula l!ar11J.y be .heart.
'tJhieh "ord does NOT fit in the blank?
17.
The
(A}
bloomin~
flower smelled
(B)
yellow
(C)
pretty
s-weet.
(D)
(E)
nice
happily
Hary ran to the market.
18.
(A)
Happily
(B)
Quickly
(C)
After the ga:::e
(D)
(E)
1
I know that
.·~hen
I
l
L-------------------
---~--------------------------'
57
5.
Please
11
ans~er
the
questions 4bout this nonsense
!ollowin~
A lupable dation vas li.orkin' su•t!J.7
&own
senten~e.
the !apment."
19. Who or vhat vas ti;lini somethinc:?
(A)
(:S)
elation
lupable
(E)
(D)
(.C}
!lapment
li.orkinc
20. Hov was it li.oi:nc; somethillt;?
(A)
(B)
(D)
(C)
lupable
dation
(E}
!lapment
21. What vera teseribee the person or thine
(:a)
(A)
(B)
wner~
th~t vas
(D)
flapment
(D)
(C)
suotiiily
lupable
23.
sutlii.ly
lupllblo
elation
(A)
(C)
torkin'
toin, somethin,?
(:S:)
tiorkin&
(.E)
flapment
torkin:;
aoes not say
(C)
(D)
(3)
was it li.oing it?
(B)
(A.)
sua lilly
lupable
{B)
(A)
lupable
flapment
(D)
(C)
suddily
·ioes not say
flapment
(E)
:i.orking
does not say
******~~MMIMM~WMM.WAijJAAaMMAAMJAaaMAAMMIMJMM~~-*~~~·~~~~~~~JAA
YJnere woula it make the most sense to stop i! you were reatiing this
senten~:e
aloud?
In the choices below, the spaces show .r-l,;ces for
stoppin~.
25.
11
The very skillful boy hit the bfll over the fence."
(A.) The very skill!ul
boy hit
the ball
over the fence.
58
6.
hit the
skill.!ul boy
hit the
(C }o The Yer"f skilli'ul boy
Yery-
(ll) The
the
over
(E)
iHH:
~
M. M."
~. ~.
hit
the
ball
fen•••
boy hit the
very skilli'ul
Tne
oYer the !enae.
ball
boy
skilli'ul
ball oYer
MM MM. MM M~ •••
~
M.
~MM.
ball over the
M. MM. M. M ~
~
•. M MM MM M
Where woulti. it make the most sense to stop i! you were reatin' ttis
sentence alouti.?
!a the choiees below, the
spa~es
show the places
for stoppin,.
26.
11
Sometimes I vonti.er Yhat the worlti. will be lil<e in 200 years."
(J.) Sometimes I
'O'Onti.er what the
worlti. will
be
like in 200 years.
(B) Sometimes
I 1o1onter Yhat
the vorl& vill
be like i.n
200 years.
(C) Sometimes I wonti.er what
the
worlti. will
be li\:e
in 200 years.
(D) Sometimes I wonti.er
(E) Sometimes
be
like
vhat the vorlti. will be like
vonti.er
I
in
what
the
worlti..
i.n 200 years.
will
200
------------~------·-·
-·
··-----------------~
59
STI?
rou are
learn.
Your
~oin:
Form A-1
to take a test tellin: about ·•a:rs in
ans"lfer~
".olill not .Ufeet :rour
the questions the 11a:r yoq you.J.a pla;r a
eAjoy ioin: this.
able to
~a.S.e
~a:lle.
1ihi~h
in school.
:rca
Ans-..;er
'tie hope that JOU ;;ill
Go aheaa at a <:omfortable speei.
You shoul9 be
£L~sh L~ ~ne perio~.
--------------·------·--··-·-----
60
----------------------------------------------------------
---
--------------l.
Choose the letter !rom group 2 that looks the most
l~~e
all the
letters in group l.
Grouo 2
Grouo 1
(;.}
0
l.A.XZ
2.
~orne
DABAT
DANA~
s
(.!.)
0
n su
'•i'hat vorl! should
3.
\B)
:
J3) (C;)
D
8
(D)
c
(D)
Q
(!:)
Q
(E;)
c
next?
(3)
(D)
(C)
(B)
HAZI
(D)
(C)
LA'tiN
U.,')oj}i
(E)
DABAT
DABAR
nnat should the next picture look
D rJ
;. [J
N
DONAT
tOE AT
- (A)
ABeD
(C)
DJ_."\AT
- (E)
.3ACK
l~~e?
t9l~lJDCL
b.
(C)
(:S)
(.!.}
(D)
(E)
6 (f) ~~~'
I
ffiei)
-
Cl
(A)
ao
a
~a~o~- l§c:=J J
(C)
(B)
(D)
(E)
1: 'Nhich item belongs with the following pietures?
8
0
0
00
(A)
(B)
~
(C)
(D)
----------------------
(E)
_____________
___;
61
2:.
8.
'ilhisll item belongs ·.nth the followini ?ietures'?
0 LO
o r.__=---'J
0
(B)
(A)
(Z)
(D)
(C)
'lihicll of the following figures is NGT in figure 1?
9.
I><><J
(.<\.)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
10.
CJ
(A)
Z6~
(B)
(C)
(D)
0
(E)
62
3.
'lfhi=h o! these i.:l mOSt
u.
.(B}
·(A)
12.
lkll
13.
.(c")
la.q.r
klipr
o£ these are parts of
. (B·}
·(A)
urgl
14.
hgin
fa)
(A-}'
~nich
(C.);
'Zkin~
ntig
l·P..r·•
(C);
eig!l
gl..-u
{c)
-.(a)
(A'.}
luta
tihg
ghit
a ::-er:;ular ::nglish uori?
,(Z)
.. (D}
glinek
ntixg
-~D")
(E)
f'lis
ru.a.
no~l ~glish
(t)
words?
(E}
~ne:L
hg~i
·(n)
(E}
toul.
ight
....
:. In whi11h o£ the following sets of senter:ces is the mec:ning of sentence
the
15.
S:ill!e
(A}
as the !nean:ing of sentenee
\~)
~2)
f&)
.(C)
The boy
'The bo:r
a?
hit the ball.
hit by ':.he ball.
'A as
~l.) l·1r. Jones ;.-rote a book.
(2:) A boo~ was ~rritten by 1-Ir. Jones •
~) T"ne horse pulled. the •,;a gon.
(2.) The wagon pu..lleii the horse.
1;.
63
--------------------------------------------------------.
4.
(D)
(~)
Although it was raL~ng, we eaneellea ~he grune.
(2.) '3eeause it was rair1ing, v.e eaneelleG. the ga rl!e.
(E)
(1)
(2)
!he ga:ne is eas:r to ·~~"1.
l'he game vas e~si.l]' unti.erstoot.
15.
(A)
~1) C~orge asked • question.
ques~ion ~as ask~a by :eorge.
(2) A
(B)
\1) The
( 2) 1:he
oulled the truek.
c;:d _.... as pulleci by the trJ..::k.
'lal"
(C)
(1) 'tie looketl. at the rainbow, ar.li it '.ias da!"k.
(2.) 'tie looked for taerai.nbow, but it \fas dark.
(D}
~)The
woodcutter eut down the tree.
..
(.2) The tree cut dolil'!l the -..oodeutter •
~
~
) The song is hard to sing.
) Tho 30tl'" caul&. haril;r be· .heari.
'lihien <lord does NOT fit in the blar.k'?
17.
flower smelle<i · s-weet.
The
(A}
(B)
blooming
18.
yellow
(C)
pretty
.(D)
nice
(S)
haP9il:r
Mary ran to the market.
(A}
.(B)
Happily
(C)
.(D)
(E)
! k:tow that
----------------------------------------------
..J
64
5.
Please
ar~wer
the
!ollowL~g
questions about this nonsense sentence.
3Z Sti'?..E TO REFER 3ACK TO T:S SE;.;TZNCZ ?OR C.U"ESTICNS 19 through 24.
m A lupable
19.
·.~no
cl~tion
was
dcrk~~g
suddily
den~
the
t~apme~t.~
or what w•s d.oing soa:ethir..g?
(~)
(C)
(.!.)
(B)
elation
lupable
suuail:r
(E)
!l.apment
20. Ecv was it d.oing som.ethir.i;?
(.!.)
(B)
elation
21.
.leseribes
elation
~•as
flapment
suri;til;r
:h~t,
ci.orking
cioi:1;
~,.;as
somet~"':.g?
(E}
(:0)
i'l.apment
a.orkix.'
aoi.n~1
E
(Z)
(D)
(A)
(B)
(C)
11...-pable
suci.dilr
i'lzpment
dorki..Y).:
<ioes not sa;r
(C}
(b)
(E)
trihere was it doing it?
(.!.)
. (B)
lupable
24.
(C)
luDable
...
23.
(!:}
per-s"n or thing
~he
(B)
(.A.)
22. l'rJhat
suli.C.i17
lupable
'Nnat ·•ori
(b)
(C)
suddil;r
fla~ment
d.orki."lg
joes not sa;
',\llen HaS it C.obg it?
(J.)
(B)
lupable
(D)
(C)
suddilj·
flapment
(Z)
dork~~g
does
~ct
say
~-,'H; ~ ~ J1 ~ M-:l-".-..i-P_.-.r"-'***"'..-l.~"****":H!-~:l-A-*-~A-:P..-~~_..,...~-:<-::<'~~'**
1iliere would it mike the
sentence aloud?
~ost
sense to stop i! you were reading
t~s
L'l the choices belov, the spaces silc'!,J places fer
stoppi.rtg.
2$.
1
'
l'he very skillful boy hit the b<>ll over the fence."
(A) The ver7 skillful
bo,T hit
the ball
over the fence.
_ _ _ _ _ _ !___________________________· - - - - · - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - · - - - - '
65
----------------------~------~--------·-·----
-----·-
-------
~------------~
6.
b;;;ll over
hit t!:le
skillful boy-
(B) !he ver:r
the !enee.
(C}• The very skql "u.l boy
(:D) The
(E)
ski 1 J '\ll.
7ery
over
hit the
boy
the
hit
b;;.ll
fenge.
the
bo;r hit the
very sk'i 1 fuJ.
1'h.e
over the tence.
bill
ball over tne
£ense.
'1-<H:-~~~~~HHI-*-~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ll*""**-~"*-lH-~
:~"here "fi'Oult
it make th-e :nost sense to stop :L!
In the choices
sentence aloua?
bel~r,
JOU ·..rer~ r-~a<li.."l~
t.l:is
the s9aces shew the ·?laees
tor stopping.
26.
11
Someti=s I ;(onlier 'Jhat the 'lforl·a •ai.ll be like i.'l 200 years."
'.iontier '.fh;;.t the
(.\.) Scmet imes I
..
like
i.ll
-.rorld. wtll
be
200 .rears •
I •.oonlier ioih.at
(B) Someti.11es
the '.forlt ':Jill
be like in
200 years.
(C)
Someti.~es
! Acnaer
~hat
the
worlti -.,i.ll
be li.':e
in 200 years.
(D)
tE)
Sometimes
Somet~es
be
like
~
wonder
what the worli will be li.':e
the
I
in
200
in 200 ;ears.
will