Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 81.djvu/457

Table 1

	In Last Three Years of Elementary School		In High School		In College
	El. Interest	El. Ability	H. S. Interest	H. S. Ability	C. Interest	C. Ability
Mathematics
History
Literature
Science
Music
Drawing
Other hand work[1]

 

Experiment 35

Consider your ability in each of the activities listed in Table 1, as it existed during the last three years of your attendance on the elementary school. Bank the activities from 1 to 7 according to your ability in each, marking that activity in which you had most ability 1. Record your ranks under the column headed El. Ability in Table 1. Record similarly (under H. S. Ability) the order of ability for you during the H. S. period. Record similarly (under C. Ability) the order of ability for you now.

We have then for each of the hundred a record such as is shown in the case of one of them in Table 2. These data are obviously subject to

Table 2

	In Last Three Years of Elementary School		In High School		In College
	El. Interest	El. Ability	H. S. Interest	H. S. Ability	C. Interest	C. Ability
Mathematics	3	3	3	2	4	2
History	1	1	4	3	1	1
Literature	2	2	2	1	2	3
Science	4	4	1	4	3	4
Music	5	5	7	5	5	7
Drawing	6	6	5	7	6	5
Other hand work	7	7	6	6	7	6

certain errors of memory, prejudice, carelessness and the like, which will, later, be given due attention. It will be best to consider first what the meaning of the records would be, were each number a perfectly true statement of the relative strength of the interest or ability in question. Consider then this sample record as perfectly true and compute from it the differences between each subject's position for interest in the last three years of the elementary-school period (column 1) and for the high-school period (column 3).

1. Other hand work means carpentering, sewing, gardening, cooking, earring, etc.