The effect of the human development program on the attending behavior of grade one, two, and three students
Date
1980
Authors
Haugland, Harry Christian
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Abstract
The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect that regularly experiencing the Human Development Program at a grade one, two, and three level would have on the attention to task of children identified as having difficulty in this area.
Fifty-four grade one, two, and three students enrolled in nine classrooms of a town in central British Columbia were the sample used for this study.
The sample was equally represented with boys and girls. At each grade level there was a sample group experiencing the Human DevelopĀment Program at least three times a week, a group experiencing Traditional Sharing Time three times a week, and a group having no special treatment. The study was carried out over a ten week period.
The data was collected using a time-sampling observation method. Five observers were used to collect the study data. Observations were made on each member of the groups in both their regular classroom sessions and also during their treatment sessions. The data was collected in April, five weeks later in May, and again five weeks following in June.
The In-Class and Treatment pre data were analysed using an Analysis of Variance to determine if there were significant differences between the groups before the treatment was experienced. Significant differences were found to exist, therefore an Analysis of Covariance under the conditions of the present study. The Analysis of Covariance was followed by a post hoc Scheffe Multiple Comparison of Group Means. The post hoc test employed the adjusted means calculated through the Analysis of Covariance. From this analysis, significant treatment effect was found to exist for the grade three Human Development Program group in comparison to the grade three group which received no special treatment (P.05). Also the grade three Human Development Program group demonstrated significantly greater treatment effect on observations taken during their circul sessions than did the grade three Traditional Sharing Time group during their sharing sessions.
From these results, it was concluded that the decision to employ the Human Development Program as a means of increasing task attention in school is supported by this research at the grade three level, but not at the other two levels.
Suggestions for possible future research were included in the study.