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The Effects of Positive Transfer and of Negative Transfer on Paired-associate Learning by Institutionalized Adult Retardates Controlled for Intellectual Level
Abstract
The present study evolved from an experiment which the writer began while taking a Seminar in Human Learning in 1968. At that time the writer was employed as a school psychologist at a state hospital-school for the mentally retarded. He had heard numerous discussions concerning whether or not the mentally retarded mediated verbal material. Some psychologists at the state hospital-school thought that the mentally retarded did mediate, but not to the same degree as normal individuals. Other psychologists argued that the difference was one of kind rather than of degree. The writer decided to investigate this problem experimen- tally. The first step was to review the literature, and then to develop a suitable learning task for retardates. The author consulted the Hand- book of Experimental Psychology, (1951), by S. S. Stevens, and secured from Hilgard's List some easy nonsense syllables. Next, a random sample of retardates stratified by sex and controlled for intellectual levelwas drawn from all available residents within the state hospital-school. It was quickly found that these Ss were unable to learn even the easiest nonsense syllables commonly used. Now the writer was without a task which could be used to test his hypothesis. He developed a new task, consisting of nonsense syllables containing only two letters (bigrams) rather than three (trigrams). Again a sample of Ss was selected from the available pool as before.
Subject Area
Educational psychology
Recommended Citation
EGNOSKI, EUGENE JOSEPH, "The Effects of Positive Transfer and of Negative Transfer on Paired-associate Learning by Institutionalized Adult Retardates Controlled for Intellectual Level" (1974). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI7423891.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI7423891