Results of group and of individual tests applied to practically pure-blood negro children on St. Helena Island.

Abstract

In all cases in this report "age 7" means that the 7th but not the 8th birthday has been passed, and so for all other ages.

A STUDY OF PERFORMANCE TESTS GIVEN TO A GROUP OF NATIVE AFRICAN NEGRO CHILDREN1

“…The relation of the comparison groups to the average of American negroes can be no more conclusively determined. When we consider, however, that the St Helena negroes are all of practically pure blood, and that they are descendants of Gullah negroes who are the residuals of a long line which, it is held (20), has to some extent been depleted by emigration of the more enterprising and vigorous individuals, it becomes relatively unlikely that their endowment is superior to that of the average American negro. The West Virginian negroes, on the other hand, contain a white admixture of unknown amount.…”

Learning in children.

“…This learning problem has been simplified for children of different ages by the use of five or seven letters only and has been extensively applied to white and Negro children (Peterson,62;Peterson,Lanier,and Walker,67;Peterson and Lanier,66;and Peterson and Telford,68) in comparisons as to learning (see Table 13) . The Rational Learning Problem requires for efficient solution the holding in mind of a relatively complex situation involving immediately past responses, while the subject organizes the various elements so as to reduce errors as rapidly as possible.…”

“…In the present form, as applied to children, the reliability of this learning test (determined by two different applications) ranges from .56 (on twelve-year-old pure-blood Negro children) upwards, according to the heterogeneity of the group. Tests of pure Negroes on St. Helena Island (Peterson and Telford,68) indicate that this learning test is less influenced by environmental conditions and specific school training than are certain performance tests used on the same children, and that there is less learning effect carried over from the first to the second application of the test.…”

Comparative studies of full and mixed blood North Dakota Indians.

“…The individual ideational learning test was the Peterson Rational Learning Test. For a detailed description of this test see (7) and (8). It was not administered at Fort Peck; consequently our results are based on the Fort Totten and Wahpeton groups only.…”