Trades students and trade calculations: Stupid or stupefied?

Abstract

Poor achievers in trades calculations among students of Fitting and Machining had been the subjects of earlier studies which attempted to relate their failure to possession or lack of the specific structures as described by Piaget. Such a relationship was not shown but there were marked differences between high and low achievers in the ability for form sets using words. This study explores the ability of high and low trades calculations students to form hierarchies of groups using industrial processes as class members. Three sets of stimuli were used: the students own term for the process, still pictures and moving, or action pictures. The high achievers in calculations were significantly better than the low group when words or still pictures were the subject of the grouping technique but the difference disappeared when action or moving pictures were used. It is argued that the problem which many of these low achievers have with trade calculations may be due to undeveloped memory coding systems rather than to language inability or to lack of intellectual power, and that herein may lie the source of successful remedial techniques.