Verbalization as a Factor in Learning*

Abstract

five familiar animals (a cat, dog, rabbit, bear, and monkey). These were 3 inches in height, and were made of celluloid; as the celluloid proved to be too light to withstand daily handling, a filling of plaster of paris was poured into the interior of each object, in order to give weight and stability. In all three series, a cup-like opening was left at the bottom of each object, permitting a small toy to be hidden inside. These toys, serving as reward objects when a selection was made, consisted of 25 toy animals, } of an inch in height. The subjects for the experiment were 80 nursery school, kindergarten and first grade children from the University of California Institute of Child Welfare, the Berkeley Day Nursery, and the University Elementary School. Since in this experiment it was necessary to compare learning scores for three different series of test material, it was deemed advisable to rotate the tests in comparable groups of subjects, in order to control practice factors. With six possible orders of testing (A B C, A C B, B A C, B C A, C A B, C B A) six equivalent groups were necessary; these were obtained by a process of matching, taking into consideration C A., M A., school and sex. The instructions for series A were: One of these shapes has a toy under it; see if you can find which shape has a The child's first efforts are of course purely trial and error; after a successful choice, he was asked where he had found the toy. When he indicated the correct object under which the toy had been located, the experimenter would say, Yes, that one had it. This procedure, calling the child's attention to the object, was for each series employed on the first three trials, and at every third trial thereafter. The purpose of this was to maintain an interest in