THE RELATIONSHIP OF PLANNING AND ORGANIZATIONAL ABILITY TO SCHOOL SUCCESS

Abstract

This study investigated the hypothesis that school failure is, in part, based on a poor ability to plan and organize a problem solution. The subjects were twenty low achieving and twenty average achieving middle class, suburban, parochial school second graders of matched intelligence, age, socio-economic level and sex. The children were given five experimental tasks designed for the study, WPPSI mazes and the Trail Making Test. The experimental tasks were easy to achieve and permitted observation of the children's organization of materials to complete the task. The other tests were evaluated by standard scoring and observation. The results indicated that the low achieving group demonstrated a less planful approach than did the average achievers. The implications of the results for issues of cognitive style, attention and language were discussed.