22 



Indiana Umversity Studies 



In computing the intergrade intervals the average was found 

 to be .79 (see Table 5) of the distance from line to line. In the 

 lower grades it is more; in the upper grades, less. Accepting 

 this as a standard, it would seem that the distance between the 

 median and the best or between the median and poorest pupils 

 of any class should not be more than .79. A pupil varying more 

 than this should pass to the next higher or the next lower grade. 

 Further, the distance between the best and the poorest pupils 

 of any class should not exceed 1.58 or approximateh^ 1| times the 

 distance from line to line. Now what do we find? For the 8A's 

 there are 20 pupils of line 6 ability, and 113 of line 10.5 ability, 

 a distance between the best and poorest of four and one-half 

 steps, or a little less than three times the allowable difference. 

 That is. the 20 should be 3 grades lower than the 113. Worse 

 still is the case of the other grades. In SB there are 10 who are 

 6.9 grade intervals below the best 89; and for the succeeding half 

 grades the distance between the best and poorest pupils is as 

 follows: 



7A: Poorest 3 — 7.5 grade-intervals below best 85 

 7B: Poorest 10 — 7.5 grade-intervals below best 57 

 6A: Poorest 79 — 6.3 grade-intervals below best 85 

 6B: Poorest 18 — 7.5 grade-intervals below best 26 

 5A: Poorest 12 — 8.9 grade-intervals below best 16 

 5B: Poorest 31 — 8.9 grade-intervals below best 15 

 4A: Poorest 47 — 8.9 grade-intervals below best 15 

 4B: Poorest 79 — 8.9 grade-intervals below best 5 

 3A: Poorest 131 — 8.9 grade-intervals below best 8 

 3B: Poorest 259 — 8.9 grade-intervals below best 1 



The meaning of these figures is that in every grade there are 

 pupils grouped together who in actual ability are from 3.1 to 4.4 

 grades apart. ^ If we were to classify the children represented in 

 Table 6 on the basis of their ability as measured by the visual 

 vocabulary scale, we should cut the table horizontally instead of 

 longitudinally. We should make line 4, which is just third grade 

 ability, the standard for the lowest grade. Into this group we 

 should put all in the second horizontal row. Here would come 

 pupils from every grade except 8 A, 8B, and 6 A. The next group 

 would include all of line 5 ability, and would include pupils from 

 every grade except 8A. Continuing in this fashion, five additional 

 grades would be formed. Each grade would draw from every 



5. The case is even worse than this, for. if, instead of measixring by the average 

 intergrade interval, we take the seventh-eighth interval, the 20 are 3.4 times the allow- 

 able distance below the best of their grade. 



