A comparison of the rate of learning of low imagery nouns by first grade girls and first grade boys

The purpose of this study was to compare the number of trials which beginning first grade girls took to learn low imagery nouns with the number of trials which beginning first grade boys took to learn low imagery nouns.

Forty pupils, twenty girls and twenty boys from South Rossville Elementary School, Rossville, Georgia, were included in the initial population of the study.

Words from the Paivio et al. (1968) scale of 925 nouns were presented to the students in individual training sessions. Nouns on the scale have numerical values which allow them to be classified as high or low for the dimensions of imagery and concreteness. For the purposes of this study, nouns with values of 4.0 and less were classified as low imagery.

For a three-week period each pupil was presented with word cards which represented nouns they did not recognize by sight but for which they knew the meaning. After initial presentation, six of these nouns were flashed for one second each, five times during each session. Correct and incorrect responses were recorded for each word for training trials, short term recall (24 hours) and delayed recall (48 to 72 hours).

The final population of twenty-seven (27) pupils was presented a total of 300 nouns during the course of the study; included were 131 nouns of this total in delayed recall. The thirteen girls learned (delayed recall) almost twice as many words (86 words) as did the fourteen boys (45 words). The girls learned 53% of the words presented to them; whereas, the boys learned only 33% of the words presented to them. The girls took 1575 trials to learn the 86 words while the boys took 880 trials to learn the 45 words.

The results indicated that beginning first grade girls and boys could learn low imagery nouns by the flash card method and that the girls learned more words than did the boys.

In learning a word (delayed recall) the girls made fewer error responses than the boys and conversely a greater number of correct responses.