RELATION BETWEEN CERTAIN PHYSICAL DEFECTS AND SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT.

This study was made to determine the relationship between certain physical defects and school achievement of Intermediate School pupils as measured by teachers' marks. The matched pair technique was used and 300 defective pupils were paired with 300 non-defective pupils so that each pair was similar in intelligence, grade location, curriculum, age, sex, occupational status of parent, and nationality of parent. The two groups were similar according to amount of attendance per semester and the number of semesters in attendance at the school where the data were collected. The teachers' marks were converted into honor point averages. Honor point averages in mathematics, English, social science, general science, and health were computed. A total honor point average for the five subjects combined was also calculated. The data were analyzed separately for boys and girls. For the boys, five of the six comparisons showed slight differences in favor of the defective pupils. None of the differences approached statistical significance. For the girls, the six comparisons revealed differences in favor of the non-defective pupils. One difference, involving the total honor point averages, was statistically significant. The outstanding fact brought out by this study is that 11 of the 12 comparisons revealed differences that are so small that they can be due to chance errors due to random sampling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]