Browsing by Author "Isaacs, Patricia A."

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    Conservation of a selection of scientific and mathematical concepts among some Grade 6 children in Jamaica: A report of findings
    (School of Education, UWI, 1975) Isaacs, Patricia A.;
    This study sought to determine the proportion of Grade 6 students who had learned to conserve length, area, quantity, weight, internal volume, displaced volume and horizontality. The effect of intelligence, socio-economic status, type of school attended, location of school, and achievement in school on concept development were also investigated. The results showed that, except in the case of length, less than 50 percent of the sample of 586 10- to 13-year-olds had conserved these concepts. A video-taped test, which could accommodate groups of up to 30, was one interesting feature of the instrumentation
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    Development of a test of process skills for Grade 3 elementary school pupils
    Isaacs, Patricia A.;
    Although the development of process skills has been accepted as being an important part of primary school curricula in science and in other subjects, few valid and reliable tests exist for their assessment. Therefore, a test is being developed to assess these skills. It is designed to meet seven criteria (such as testing process skills taught during the first three years of schooling and not being slanted towards any particular subject area). Three versions of Form 1 were administered to 318 Jamaican students in Grade 3 classes in 10 rural primary schools. The mean of this form was 20.67 with a standard deviation of 6.6. A Cronbach alpha of 0.85 was obtained. Six of the items had a facility of 0.32 or less; six of the items had a facility of 0.75 or greater. Discrimination indices were also satisfactory. Plans are underway for testing all six versions of the test simultaneously with students of the same age in Barbados, Belize, and Jamaica. It is hoped that the resulting tests will be a useful resource for assessing the levels of development of the process skills for either research purposes or for evaluating student learning due to curriculum development
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    Preparation and validation of a videotaped test of conservation suitable for grade six students in Jamaica
    (School of Education, UWI, 1981) Isaacs, Patricia A.;
    A 30-minute videotaped test was designed to standardize variables associated with the test's administration. The film presented situations involving conservation concepts such as liquid quantity, solid quantity, weight, displaced volume, and horizontality. After trial, the test was administered to 586 urban and rural sixth graders, and reliability and validity were examined by means of a test-retest procedure, factor analysis, and comparison with clinical test results. Desired criteria were met