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

<p>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.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Psychology

Year

1979

Author dc:creator

• Smith, Eugene

Contributors dc:contributor

• Robert Simpson

• Western Kentucky University
• Child Psychology
• Cognition and Perception
• Experimental Analysis of Behavior
• Pre-Elementary, Early Childhood, Kindergarten Teacher Education
• Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1413

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.wku.edu:theses-2421