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Head Start Four and Five Year Old Children’s Attitudes Toward School as They are Related to Achievement

The purpose of this study was to determine if there existed significant relationships between 4 and 5 year old children’s attitude toward school, their classroom teacher’s perception of their attitude toward school, length of time in school, sex, or a composite of these with their achievement on the Pre-School Attainment Record. A random sample of 55 Head Start children completed three instruments. The instruments used in this study were a revised Children’s Attitude Toward School Scale (CATSS-R), (Beere, 1970) The Pre-School Attainment Record (PAR), (Doll, 1966) and the Teachers Rating of Attitude of Children Toward School (TRACTS). The results of the multiple regression analysis yielded an R of .517 between the composite variable (CATSS-R and Age) and the PAR achievement measure. This was statistically significant at the .01 level of confidence and explained 26.7% of the PAR variance. The second composite variable consisting of CATSS0R, Age and TRACTS correlated with the PAR achievement variables at .530 and was significant at the .01 level, explaining 28.13% of the PAR variance. The third variable, TRACTS, contributed only 1.3% of the total composite variance explaining PAR achievement. Time in school and sex contributed even less when included with the other variables in the composite variable. Results of the Pearson-product moment correlation of each of the variables with PAR achievement demonstrated significant correlations for only CATSS-R and Age (r .45 and r -.30) at the .01 level of confidence. However, the ­ tests between Pearson correlation coefficients of each of the variables’ correlation with the PAR achievement revealed four out of a possible 10 significant differences. The ANOVA test showed that the four year olds were superior to the five year olds on the PAR. A brief discussion was given of the implications for education in regard to the vast differences between teachers perception and students own perception of their attitude toward school.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:WKU/oai:digitalcommons.wku.edu:theses-2421
Date01 July 1979
CreatorsSmith, Eugene
PublisherTopSCHOLAR®
Source SetsWestern Kentucky University Theses
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceMasters Theses & Specialist Projects

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