A COMPARISON OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPT‐FORMING ABILITY BETWEEN CHILDREN EDUCATED IN COMBINED JUNIOR AND INFANT SCHOOLS AND THOSE EDUCATED IN SEPARATE INFANT AND JUNIOR SCHOOLS

ABSTRACT

The possible effects upon a child's intellectual development of having to transfer from an infants’ school to a junior school is a matter which has received scant attention. This study aimed at an examination of the problem by comparing the ability to form class‐concepts of junior school children who had been educated in separate infants’ schools with that of juniors who were being educated in combined infants’ and junior schools. Sorting tests and classification tests at the concrete, concrete‐abstract, verbal and verbal‐abstract levels were administered and the results were examined by an analysis of variance technique. This indicated significant differences in favour of children educated in the combined type of school.