A study of mental fatigue in relation to the daily school program / [by] W. H. Heck.

  • Heck, W. H. (William Harry), 1879-1919.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A study of mental fatigue in relation to the daily school program / [by] W. H. Heck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    children turned the papers over immediately and began to work the examples in the numbered order. They worked steadily as directed, with surprisingly little hurry or interruption, until told to stop, when they turned their papers over without put- ting down another figure. During the test, I quietly watched the children and their papers, so as to prevent cheating, toward which there was little inclination, and to see that the examples were worked in proper order and without hurry, especially toward the end. The children did not know how much time was being allowed, the progress of time was not mentioned, and I consulted my watch almost without being noticed. The time limit for each test was ten minutes, not long enough for the children to be fatigued by the test itself. Great care was taken to be exact in starting and stopping. The first four (those in P. S. 177) of the forty classes tested were given twelve minutes, which time, of course, was maintained through- out the four tests with these classes, and did not affect the total results as far as my purpose was concerned—the twelve-minute tests being compared only with each other. But as many children in these four classes finished in ten or eleven minutes, the time limit was reduced to ten with the other classes. Even then several children finished a little before ten minutes and generally spent the extra time in looking over and correcting their work. Those children that finished early put themselves at a possible disadvantage, if, in their speed, they sacrificed quality to quantity and were unable to increase the quantity further by working extra examples up to the full time allowed. How- ever, as the total tests showed slightly more work and a slightly greater per cent of error at the periods after the first period, these disadvantages might have had slightly more influence and been added to the fatigue effect at those periods. That this difference is small is shown by the fact that the five groups which included far more than half of the completed tests had, as averages for the five groups and for the three periods, a smaller increase in amount of 0.47 per cent, and only a greater decrease in correct work of 0.04 per cent than did all the ten groups combined into one total group. If any possible dis- advantage affected the results of these five groups, it was swallowed up in their superior ability. In a note on page 21