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Alu. 11-1922

'Harvard University;

Library of the Graduate School of Education

UNGRADED

VOLUME VII

APRIL, 1922

NUMBER 7

Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office, Albany, N. Y., March 7, 1981

Signed articles are not to be understood as expressing the views of the editors or publishers

INTERESTS IN RELATION TO INTELLIGENCE

A STUDY OF THE RELATION OF THE MENTAL STATUS OF SCHOOL CHIL-
DREN TO THEIR MOTIVATION AS SHOWN IN THE CHOICES OF SCHOOL
PLANS AND OCCUPATIONAL PREFERENCES.

By LOUISE E. POULL, PH. D.

INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF PREVIOUS RESEARCHES

The study of interests is essential to the study of human nature. Interest is an important factor in every analysis of mental functioning. "My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind-without elective interest experience is an utter chaos. Interest alone gives accent and emphasis, light and shade, background and foreground-intelligible perspective in a word. It varies in every creature but without it the consciousness of every creature would be a gray chaotic indiscriminateness impossible for us to conceive."(1)* "We may say that three general factors of advantage determine the power of any stimulus to attract attention. There is the native factor consisting of change, intensity, striking quality and form; there is the factor of habit, dependent on past experience; and there is the factor of present interest and desire."(2) Thorndike (3) has further analysed interest into "instinctive likes" and "readiness" for neurone condition. Scientific research on neurone conduction will no doubt lead eventually to a fuller understanding of the manner in which this readiness is brought about.

Walseman (4) describes interest as the subjective condition of

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cognition. Its importance both as a source of energy and as a means of conservation of energy is explained by him in analysing the nature of interest. It consists of an inner need to pursue its object, combined with a joyous exaltation and a feeling of buoyancy. It contains within itself a constant stimulus to further endeavor, positive direction and balanced tension. It provides, without expenditure of energy, for the control of moods, desires, and passions.

It remains for the laboratory psychologist to put this important element of mental functioning in proper form for scientific observation; to get a cross section, so to speak, for anaylsis. Folsom (5) expresses the inadequacy of treating character traits as general attributes of mind. ".... they fail to discriminate different situations, and they assume too great generality. . Lack of concentration may be simply inability to concentrate on certain kinds of work." The study of interest, then, becomes, in the laboratory, the study of interests, and these can be observed only in their manifestations. Laboratory psychology is concerned with the age at which they appear, their permananence or transitoriness, their power of motivation, their relation to abilities and capacities.

Folsom (5) endeavored to find the relation of interest to other forms of motivation. He classified the motives for vocational choices taken from the questionnaire responses of 206 distinguished men from "Who's Who" and those of 155 upper classmen of a small college. These motives were: 1. Intrinsic interest; 2. Satisfactions not intrinsic: Advantage, Ambition, and Desire for social contacts; 3. Moral motives: Service and Duty; 4. Fitness; 5. Opportunity in the field; 6. Financial, including necessity; 7. Influence or tradition; 8. Elimination. "That nearly half of the motivation for vocational choice among college men is sheer liking or interest for the work seems established. It is evident that this motive plays a much greater part in technical and scientific occupations."

The influence of the father's occupation on the vocational interest of the child was studied by Elizabeth T. Sullivan (6) in the San Jose High School in 1918. The Barr Rating Scale for Vocations was used in making the comparison. "It will be seen that the students choosing a Class 2 vocation have a tendency to choose the same in from one to four points below the father. Students choosing a Class 3 vocation make a choice ranging from

one point below that of the father to three points above, while those choosing a Class 4 vocation range in choice from two points below to two points above that of the father. Fifty per cent. of the students choosing a Class 3 vocation make the same choice as the father. For the remaining per centages there is a decided tendency for students to make a choice above that of the father. When the student's choice of vocation is below that of the father, the choice is always of the lower class vocations. We may conclude that the father's vocation does not inspire the student in the choice of his vocation. On the contrary, it is possible to conclude that the intimate knowledge he has of the limitations of his father's vocation make clear to him one vocation to be avoided." Group 1 in this scale is the lowest and group 7 the highest.

Barr (11) reports the correlation of the intelligence of the child according to the Stanford-Binet Scale with the occupational rating of the father worked out on 104 cases. The correlation was .69 with P. E. .035.

A study of group differences between public school children for various appeals to age and sex is reported by Gertrude Mary Kuper.(12) Nine pictures of uniform size and finish were chosen to represent nine appeals. She found a sex difference in the order of preference. "The girls' order was: 1, religion; 2, patriotism; 3, children; 4, pathos; 5, animals; 6, sentiment; 7, landscape; 8, the heroic; 9, action. The last two were decidedly lowest in the scale and the first three were quite clearly highest for all ages; but the picture representing these nine curves was one of bewildering intersections as the values changed from year to year. The boys' order was: 1, religion; 2, patriotism; 3, action; 4, the heroic; 5, pathos; 6, animals; 7, sentiment; 8, landscape; 9, children. The boys' chart representing the curves for these appeals showed greater agreement from year to year.'

The change of attitude from childhood to adolescence is clearly outlined in the children's expressions from year to year. "At the ages between 11 and 13 the critical spirit made its first appearance among the girls. Only at fourteen did it occur in the boys' comments. At 15, the remarks become more this age is marked by the first signs

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of hesitation in speaking of pictures of sentiment."

The indication is that interests are well defined at an early age and that it is possible to obtain objective measures of them.

May(13) emphasizes the need for taking into consideration the "vocational ideals " of children. He defines these ideals as desires which may become separated from reality on account of the apparent hopelessness of their materializing. Expressions of these ideals would, according to Dr. May, help us to understand the inner drives of the child, his longings to work out capacities he feels but does not understand, and in working out which he would be rounding out his personality. He believes it possible, beginning with the third year of school, to use a definite method, and his experiment will, no doubt, throw light on the many difficulties of using this method in the future curriculum.

Kent (14) inquired into the early constructive interests of 72 talented engineers. "With regard to interest taken in actual performance of work during boyhood, the answers affirming such interest generally do so with a positiveness and detail which marks it as the dominant one of the period.

At least 79 per cent. did more or less constructive work before reaching the age of 17. Fifty-four per cent. did such work as proves the possession during boyhood of decidedly exceptional constructive ability."

Forty-four per cent. of the whole or four-fifths of this talented section did work which indicates that this talent and their tastes already possessed a decided bent towards machine construction.

Thirty per cent. of all built steam engines, thus proving and defining in a peculiarly distinct and conclusive way both an already developed taste for mechanical engineering as such and their possession during boyhood of very exceptional talent for it. In this field, at least, we have evidence that early interest foreshadows future ability."

In 1912 Thorndike made a study of the "Permanence of Interests and their Relation to Abilities. (6) He summarizes his results as follows; "I have computed the resemblance between interest in the last three years of the elementary school and capacity in the college period as a partial measure of the extent to which early interest could be used as a symptom of adult capacity. The average for the hundred individuals is a co-efficient of correlation or resemblance of .60." He found the co-efficient of correlation between the order of ability in the elementary school in seven subjects and their order in the college period to be .65. Combined elementary and High School ability, correlated with college ability by the rank method, gave a co-efficient of .91. In

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