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The historical development of the continuity controversy in discrimination learning is reviewed in its essential aspects as a theoretical and as an experimental problem. Some implications of the controversy are discussed and an analysis is made of the trends of experimental evidence to date. It is found that, in experiments in which a relatively simple discrimination is tested, the continuity position is generally upheld, while in complex discriminations the issues remain in doubt. A fairly detailed statement of each of the theoretical positions is presented in an effort to clarify the experimental issues and to arrive at criteria which are offered as being essential for experiments directed at the controversy. The design of such an experiment is presented. This experiment could not be completed and the possible causes of its failure are analysed. In the absence of final results the data for the initial brightness discrimination are analysed and found to yield significant results in favour of the continuity theory. It is suggested that if experiments which meet the criteria arising out of the requirements of both the theories are repeatedly found to be inoperable or inconclusive the controversy in its present form cannot be held to have operational meaning. Areas of the controversy in which further clarification of theory is needed are indicated. References are included which offer a balanced survey of the literature. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

The present study considered a concept as the sum of two components: attributes and a rule. Extension of this model to the process of concept acquisition led to the notion of two component processes: attribute identification and rule learning. A subject provided with the relevant attributes in a task has only to acquire the correct conceptual rule. This process was called rule learning (RL). Initial provision of the appropriate rule requires only the acquisition of the relevant attributes, a process called attribute identification (Al). Provision of no initial information requires the learner to acquire both conceptual components. This process is called complete learning (CL). Seventy-two subjects were divided into six training groups. Five of these groups were assigned to learning paradigms that provided training on two complex concepts under varying amounts of initial information (CL-CL; AI-AI; AI-RL; RL-AI; and RL-RL). The sixth group acted as a control and performed filler tasks in place of the training tasks. The results showed that first-task learning in the paradigms had a significant effect on transfer performance. RL-first learners manifested the best transfer performance. An analysis of acquisition performance on the first learning task showed superior performance on the RL task followed by Al and CL tasks in that order. Implications of these results to practical classroom activity were discussed and illustrated with the use of an example from science education. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

The study investigated the effect of the intertrial interval on the learning of novel multiplication facts by grade three students. For nine consecutive school days the experimenter played tape recorded treatments to the students. A treatment consisted of the oral presentation of a list of fifteen novel multiplication problems and corresponding answers read through twice in a random order. A 3-second response interval was allowed between the reading of a problem and the reading of the corresponding answer. The time interval between the reading of an answer and the reading of the next problem was defined as the intertrial interval. The sample of 210 grade three students was divided into three groups. One group had an intertrial interval of 3 seconds, the second group had an intertrial interval of 7 seconds, and the third group had an intertrial interval of 12 seconds. Fifteen novel problems were determined from an item analysis of a forty-problem pre-test administered before the treatments began. A post-test consisting of only the fifteen novel problems was administered immediately following the last treatment. A retention test consisting of a random order of the fifteen novel problems was administered ten days after the last treatment. Acquisition was defined as the difference between the post-test score and the pre-test novel score. Retention was defined as the difference between the retention test score and the pre-test novel score. A one-tailed t test was used to test the significance of the mean acquisition score within each group. A two-tailed t test was used to test the significance of the mean retention score within each group. The significance of the difference in the mean acquisition and retention scores between groups was tested using analysis of covariance and Tukey's procedure for comparing individual means. Acquisition and retention within each treatment group were significant beyond the .001 level. In both acquisition and retention the 7-second group and the 12-second group performed significantly better (p<.001) than the 3-second group. There was no significant difference between the 7-second group and the 12-second group in either acquisition or retention. For the task at hand, the results indicated that 7 seconds was a good approximation to the optimal intertrial interval. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

Subjects viewed luminous targets in a dark room. Target size and composition were varied to determine their effect on subjects' reports of complete figure disappearances. The number of complete target disappearances decreased as the size of the retinal image increased. Fragmentations related to meaning and shape were also greatest under viewing conditions involving small retinal images. Subjects showed no preference when they were given the opportunity to respond to either shape of conceptual similarities in the target. Prior perceptual learning experiences were also varied. Evidence for perceptual learning on a specific target (PPL) was not found with subjects who reported that they had astigmatism. Perceptual learning was demonstrated using either a within-S or between-S design, and was found to decay rapidly over time. More meaningful training stimuli produced a greater degree of learning. Evidence for stimulus generalization was also found using a perceptual learning exercise. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of field dependence and age on the information-processing abilities of children of ages 5, 7, 9 and 11. A third purpose was to test a Ncopiagetien model of developmental task circumstances different to those under which it was initially tasted. Each age group was divided into a field dependent (FD) and field independent (FI) group on the basis of the Children's Embedded Figures Test. They were then administered a test which constituted a Finite Equal Differences task as described by Pascual-Leone (1967). Training consisted of teaching each age group a specific number of separate schemes. That is, one simple stimulus was associated with one simple response. Each schema then constituted a separate piece of information. The testing session was designed to determine how many separate schemas the children could integrate at one time, that is, to determine the information-processing capacity of the groups. Simple stimuli consisted of dimensions such as shape and colour. Testing stimuli were multidimensional combinations of these. Stimuli were projected on a screen. Response mode was pushing buttons on a panel. Each simple stimulus was associated with a specific button. The results supported the predicted superiority of performance of Fl Ss over FD Ss for each age group. Fl Ss were able to coordinate more separate schemas than FD Ss. The analysis of variance approached significance at the .05 level for the main effect of field dependence-independence: the mathematical expectation was higher for the Fl group at each age level: and the Fl variance was greater at each age level. The predicted superiority of performance with increasing age was also confirmed. The analysis of variance was significant at the .005 level for the main effect of age; mathematical expectations increased with age for both Fl and FD groups; and variance increased with age for both the Fl and FD groups. The analysis of variance showed no interaction effect. The performance of the groups in this study in general did not match the performances predicted by the model, nor the empirical results of Pascual-Leone (1967). Reasons for this were discussed in terms of the different effects of the mode of stimulus presentation on attentional factors; differences in response discriminability; and the effect of task activity requirements on the arousal level of the subjects. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The problem was to determine whether or not a discovery method of teaching for transfer was superior to an expository-method of teaching for transfer. The experiment was a comparison of the transfer effects of an unverbalized awareness and a verbal reception method of instruction. It was expected to have implications regarding the theories of Hendrix and Ausubel about transfer of training. The central problem was to compare the transfer effects of eliminating or delaying the verbalization by students of their discoveries, with those obtained by didactic presentation using Ausubel's "introductory organizers". The experiment involved ten eighth grade classes taught by six teachers. All classes and teachers were from the public school system of British Columbia. Four classes were taught by each of the experimental methods and two classes comprised a control group. The teaching involved four days of instruction on some of the introductory aspects of the language of sets. A test for transfer was administered on the fifth day. An attempt was made to ensure that the essential difference between the experimental methods lay in the unverbalized awareness - verbal reception variable rather than in some other variable. For example, the amount of teaching time, the sequence of presentation of the topics, the number and kinds of examples used, and the daily assignments were the same for each group. The mental age and the previous mathematics achievement of the groups were covaried. The verbal reception samples scored higher on the transfer task than the unverbalized awareness samples, when initial differences on these covariates were statistically eliminated. The differences were not significant at the five percent level. It was concluded that, under conditions which existed in this experiment, there was no basis for considering either method to be superior in facilitating transfer. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

It was hypothesized that greater mean retention would occur at the Knowledge and Application levels of mental functioning, as defined by Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, among students taught by a discovery method than among students taught by a more conventional, lecture-demonstration method. It was also hypothesized that greater mean retention would occur at the Application level than at the Knowledge level among students taught by a discovery method than among students taught by a lecture-demonstration method. Each of two ninth grade science classes in a single school was taught a heat unit using one of the methods mentioned above. The teaching methods were assigned randomly to intact classes, both handled by the same teacher. Two multiple choice achievement tests covering the content of the heat unit were constructed; one consisting of items in the Knowledge category and the other consisting of items in the Application category. A tryout of each of these tests was conducted upon 160 students in a single school thus allowing the elimination of unsuitable items, specifically, items whose discrimination indices were negative and those whose difficulty indices were either too high or too low. The resulting unit tests, with forty Knowledge and thirty two Application items respectively, were administered to the students of the two classes both immediately following and six weeks following the conclusion of the heat unit. The reliability coefficients of the Knowledge and Application tests, estimated by correlating the half test scores and applying the Spearman-Brown formula, were .82 and .80 respectively. Covariates, chosen on the basis of their correlation with loss scores (measures of retention), were used to adjust experimental and control group loss score means. The analysis of covariance showed a significant difference between Application loss score means and a non-significant difference between Knowledge loss score means at the pre-set 5 percent significance level. It was therefore concluded that this experiment provided evidence for the acceptance of the experimental hypothesis dealing with the retention of application objectives and for the rejection of the experimental hypothesis dealing with the retention of the knowledge objectives. Items, matched on the basis of content, difficulty index, and discrimination index were selected from the two unit tests to form Knowledge and Application subtests. Loss scores were calculated from the subtest results and the differential retention hypothesis was tested using a Z statistic. The analysis revealed a non-significant difference between differential loss score means at the pre-set 5 percent significance level. It was concluded that there was no statistical basis to support the hypothesis that greater mean differential retention (between Application and Knowledge) would occur among students taught by a discovery method than among students taught by a lecture-demonstration method. It was, however, suggested that further experimental refinements might possibly produce significant results when testing the differential retention hypothesis in a future replication of the study. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings were also discussed. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

This study was an attempt to illustrate the relationship between augmented feedback with and without an opportunity for remedial practice and the learning and performance of students from a beginning skill subject—typewriting. Augmented feedback supplied additional information which was removed later without loss of efficiency. The original statistical design took account of only the final two observations and although these results failed to achieve a statistically significant difference, the results were in the anticipated direction and sufficient to reach the 85% level of confidence. A revised statistical design which made fuller use of the available data and was more realistic in acknowledging the essentially ordinal nature of typewriting scores permitted rejection of the null hypothesis (p < .01). The hypothesis postulated for this study was accepted. It states: Novice typists supplied with immediate knowledge of error and remedial practice will experience greater gains in learning and performance than an equivalent control group which does not receive immediate knowledge of error and remedial practice. A partial treatment was incorporated into this design to ascertain if only knowledge of error would be as effective as knowledge of error and remedial practice. There is a strong indication that the knowledge plus practice group was superior to the knowledge only group; the results however are inconclusive (p < .10). / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

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