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Page 18
The influence of physical or mental defects also deserves recognition
here as a possible factor relative to school failures, although this
study has no data to offer of any statistical value in that regard. A
few pupils in high school may actually reach the limits prescribed by
their 'intelligence quotient'[15] or general mental ability, or
perhaps, as Bronner[16] so interestingly points out, be handicapped by
some special mental disability. If such be true, they will doubtless be
found in the number of school drop-outs later referred to as failing in
50 per cent or more of their work; but we have no measurement of
intelligence recorded for them to serve our purposes of
prognostication. In the matter of physical defects alone, the report of
Dr. L.P. Ayres[17] on a study of 3,304 pupils, ten to fourteen years
old, in New York City, states that "In every case except in that of
vision the children rated as 'dull' are found to be suffering from
physical defects to a greater degree than 'normal' or 'bright'
children." The defects of vision, which is the exception noted, may be
even partly the result of the studious habits of the pupils.
Bronner[16] remarks on the "relationships between mental and physical
conditions," and also on how "the findings on tests were altogether
different after the child had been built up physically." But Gulick and
Ayres[18] conclude that it is evident from the facts at hand that if
vision were omitted the percentage of defects would dwindle and become
comparatively small among the upper grades. This would probably be
still more true for the high school; but this whole field has not yet
been completely and thoroughly investigated.
It would be very desirable to have ascertained the size of the classes
in which the failures were most frequent, as well as the relative
success of the pupils repeating subjects in larger or in smaller
classes. But, as such facts were unobtainable, it is permitted here
simply to recognize the possible influence of this factor. It seems
deserving in itself of careful and special study. From the standpoint
of the pupil, the kind of subject, the kind of teacher, and the sort of
discipline employed will tend to influence the size of class to be
called normal, and to make it a sort of variable. Thirty pupils is
regarded by the North Central Association as the maximum size of class
in high school.[19] Surely the size of class will react on the pupil by
affecting the teacher's spirit and energy. Reference is made by
Hall-Quest[20] to an experiment, whose author is not named, in which
829 pupils stated that their "most helpful teachers were pleasant,
cheerful, optimistic, enthusiastic, and young." If such be true then
the very large size of classes will tend to reduce the teacher's
helpfulness.
2. THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE SCHOOL ENTERING AGE FOR PROGNOSIS
A promising but less emphasized basis of prognosticating the school
success or failure of the pupils is found in the employment of the
school entering ages for this purpose. The distribution of all the
pupils (except 30 undistributed ones, for whom the records were
incomplete), according to entering age, is here presented,
independently for the boys and for the girls.
DISTRIBUTION OF PUPILS BY THEIR ENTRANCE AGES TO HIGH SCHOOL
AGES Undis-
Total 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 tributed
2646 B. 16 211 820 900 497 148 23 10 7 14
3495 G. 8 259 1124 1217 614 194 51 10 8 16
The entering ages of these 6,141 pupils are distributed from 12 to 20,
with 30 of them for whom the age records were not given. The median age
for all the entrants is 15.3. But in order to compare this with the
median entering age (14.9) of the 1,033 pupils reported by King[21] for
the Iowa City high school, or with the median entering age (14.5) of
1000 high school pupils in New York City, as reported by Van
Denburg,[22] it is necessary to reduce these medians to the same basis
of age classification. Since age 15 for this study starts at 14�, then
15.3 would be only 14.8 (15.3-.5) as by their classification. The
percentages of the total number of pupils for each age are given below.
PERCENTAGES OF PUPILS FOR EACH ENTERING AGE
AGES
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Undistributed
Total 0.4 7.6 31.6 34.4 18.1 5.5 1.2 1.0
Boys 0.6 8.0 31.0 37.8 18.8 5.6 0.8 1.1
Girls 0.2 7.4 32.4 34.8 17.5 5.5 1.4 1.0
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