DESCRIPTORS

A 5x2x2 factorial design, including 4 instructional treatments and a control group, 2 levels of socioeconomic status (SES) , and 2 levels of IQ, was used to study methods for facilitating the formation of a one-dimensional language concept. The concept formation task required the production of instances of the concept embedded in sentences. The treatments were: rule verbalization (RV), rule application (RA) , production of instances of the concept (P), and no training (NT). Subjects (Ss) wers 75 Negro fifth and sixth graders run individually. The analysis of variance and post hoc comparisons indicated that treatments RA and P did not differ in effectiveness and both were significantly more effective than treatment RV. RV was significantly superior to NT. The high SES group learned in significantly fewer trials than the low SES group in all treatments except NT. On a mastery test requiring the production of instances of the concept embedded in sentences, the Ss who had attained criterion on the concept attainment task were superior to both the Ss who had failed to learn and the control group which received only the mastery test. The latter two groups did not differ significantly. These results indicate that concept formation is facilitated by the same instructional procedures for both high an