III. THE EFFECTS OF SIX WEEKS' DAILY DRILL IN 



ADDITION 



By Mary A. Kerr, Principal of Department School, Bloomington. 



Near the last of February, 1915, in the third week of the new 

 semester, the Courtis Test, Series B, was given thruout the 

 Bloomington schools. The three arithmetic teachers in the 

 Department school (which comprises all the children in grades 

 six, seven, and eight in the city), two of whom had had no previous 

 experience with these tests, scored all the sixth, seventh, and eighth 

 grade papers and tabulated the results. The papers of Teacher A 

 were scored by Teacher B, those of Teacher B by Teacher C, 

 and those of Teacher C by Teacher A. The results were tabulated 

 by sections and then by grades. Table I gives the median scores 

 by half-years. 



TABLE I— MEDIAN SCORES (February, 1915) 



Grade 



Num- 

 ber 



Addition 



Grade 



< [ 



Subtraction 



D5 



a; 3 

 -I 



Mui.TIPLICATION 



-if 



Division 



6B. 

 6A. 

 7B. 

 7 A. 

 8B. 

 8A. 



83 j 8.7 



I 



83 9 

 63 9.7 



67 

 65 

 62 



9.8 

 11.4 

 11.5 



5.5 I 64 



I 



5.3 59 



5.6 60 

 6 62 



6.9 

 6.3 



61 



55 



9.1 

 9.7 



10.4 



11 



13 



5.5 

 7.1 

 7.6 

 7.6 

 8.8 

 10.3 



69 

 79 

 79 

 73 

 80 

 79 



6.7 



7 



8 



8.5 

 9 



4.3 

 4.6 

 5 



5.5 



65 

 65 

 63 

 65 

 67 



10 . 1 6.2 ; 62 



6.5 

 7.4 

 8.8 

 9.4 

 10.4 



5.3 

 6 



7. 1 



8.2 

 8.9 



76 

 81 

 81 

 81 

 87 



The results revealed several things that needed to be remedied, 

 but after considerable study and comparison it was felt that 

 addition was the fundamental operation in which our children 

 showed the least growth and dependability from grade to grade. 

 Note that the gain in examples right from grade 6B to grade 

 8A is only .8 of an example. The 6A median, the lowest, is 5.3; 

 the SB, the highest, is 6.9; a difference of only 1.6 examples. 

 The range in dependability is from 55 per cent to 64 per cent 

 and lowest in grade 8A. 



