Growth in Intelligence under Differing School Environments

Our changing concept of intelligence.

“…1 The material presented illustrates the extent of change which took place in children under apparently exceptionally favorable circumstances in the one case and certainly exceptionally unfavorable circumstances in the other case. Other data are available in published (11) and unpublished form to show that under more typical circumstances than either of these, groups of children of both preschool and school ages have not changed much in mean IQ, thus bearing out the long-established notion of constancy of the mean IQ for groups. But it is now clear that the reason changes are not ordinarily found is that no real change has usually been made in the environment.…”

“…These children were not atypical but are representative of a fairly large group. The explanation for the increases of the larger groups has been found to lie in attendance at preschool and enrolment in an unusually stimulating elementary school (10,11).…”

Personality Studies Conducted in Nursery Schools

“…Wellman (31) of the University of Iowa has been the most staunch believer in the influence of the environment in changing I. Q. USing experimental and control groups she found that the experimental groups gained seven pOints between fall and spring, while non-nursery school children lost 3.…”

Changes in I.Q. At the public school kindergarten level.

“…These gains are attributed directly to preschool experiences of the children and not to such factors as practice effect with the test, testing techniques, faulty standardization of the tests at the preschool age levels, low reliability of intelligence tests at these levels, or errors made in the statistical approaches to the data obtained. Evidence is offered (42) to demonstrate that gains are associated with preschool attendance since children of preschool age not attending preschool did not make comparable gains. It is also demonstrated that (40) children do not gain in I.Q.…”