Extent to which certain psychological factors affect reading in Grade IV

The present study examined the relationship between certain Psychological variables and the Reading Achievement of a sample of Elementary School pupils. More specifically, it investigated the extend to which certain perceptual, conceptual, and personality variables are related to Vocabulary scores and Paragraph Comprehension scores as measured by the Nelson Reading Test. -- The sample used in the present study consists of 90 boys randomly selected from a group of 305 boys randomly selected by a previous investigator from the population of Grade IV boys of 1968 enrolled in schools conducted by the Roman Catholic School Board in St. John's. -- Data for the present study include scores obtained by the previous investigator on Vocabulary, Paragraph Comprehension; the socio-economic factors of Father's Occupation, Mother's Education, Number of Siblings, Number of Newspapers received in the home, and Number of days absent from school in a given period; the educational input factors of Size of School, and Teacher Qualifications. -- Added to these predictor variables by the present study are certain perceptual factors as measured by The Bender-Gestalt Test and The Uznadze Set Test; certain conceptual factors as measured by the Kasanin-Hanfmann (Vigotsky) Concept Formation Test; certain personality factors as measured by The Taylor Manifest Anxiety Test and The McClelland n-Achievement Test; and the intellectual factors of Verbal and Nonverbal I.Q. from the Lorge Thorndike Intelligence Test. -- The present study found n-Achievement, and Level of Verbalization of the Vigotsky Test to correlate significantly at the .01 level with both Vocabulary and Paragraph Comprehension. It found Time Required to Form a concept to correlate significantly at the.05 level with Paragraph Comprehension. -- On the basis of the multiple correlation and F-ratios obtained, the present study revealed that in addition to socio-economic and educational factors, the psychological factors of n-Achievement, Time Required to Form a Concept, Total Score on the Concept Formation Test, and Level of Verbalization contribute significantly at the .01 level to the multiple correlation of predictor variables with Vocabulary and especially with Paragraph Comprehension taken as criteria