AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
terms of time consumption (F=222,902; p<0,05). Time
consumption accounts for 89.9% of the standard deviation. We
checked the reliability of the hierarchic cluster analysis by the K-
mean process but found no major discrepancy between the
results.
Table 2: Cluster centroids and standard deviations
Cluster
Number of points
gained in the test
Time used for
solving the task
1
N
21
21
M
17.90
1399.19
SD
1.947
73.352
2
N
6
6
M
17.50
771.83
SD
1.975
140.276
Total
N
27
27
M
17.81
1259.78
SD
1.922
280.295
Concerning the background variables of the 27 students having
achieved good results, the following statements can be made:
their parents have a degree, it is especially the rate of the
mothers that is high as compared to the participants of the
research,
most of them are nursery school teacher students who
took their secondary school leaving exams in Hungarian
speaking schools and
at a correspondence course.
We examined the background variables of the 7 students who
had reached the best results (
≥20 points) separately. In their
cases, the pattern of the background variables changed to some
extent:
their parents have a degree, the rate of mothers with higher
education is especially high as compared to all participants
of the research,
most of them are teacher students,
they took their secondary school leaving exams in
Hungarian-speaking schools and
in full-time training.
These students live in cities and
possess work experiences, most of them in educational
fields, despite the fact that five of the seven attend full-time
training.
In terms of task solution, two groups can be created (Figure 8):
superficial but quick-witted (
≤1000 sec) and prudently thorough
(>1000 sec).
The pattern of the superficial but quick-witted ones (6 persons)
has the following characteristics:
their parents do not have a degree,
they live in smaller settlements,
they studied in Hungarian-speaking secondary grammar
schools previously,
are in full-time training now,
in teacher training.
In relation to the superficial but quick-witted ones it must be
remarked that for students H83 and H194 it is rather the latter
attribute that should be used because low time consumption goes
hand in hand with high scores (Figure 9).
Figure 9: Time consumption and total score of 27 students
distributed into 4 groups
And as for the prudently thorough ones (21 persons):
parents with a degree make the majority but the rate of the
mothers with no secondary final exam and that of the fathers
with a secondary final exam is also high,
they live in cities,
significantly most of them are involved in the
correspondence training
and the nursery school teacher specialization.
Among the sedate ones, a group of students achieving good
results with high time consumption can be observed (upper right
corner of Figure 9) as well as another group reaching lower
scores, however, cluster analysis did not give a proof of this.
We also checked the relation of time consumption and achieved
scores in terms of the whole sample (Figure 10). This relation
can be sufficiently described by an exponential function:
Score = 6.48*exp(0.00055*time consumption)
The model accounts for 39.9 percent of all of the variances. The
ANOVA survey indicates a significant regressive relation
(F=100.318; p<0.05).
Finally, we made the cluster analysis of the whole sample. We
came to a conclusion similar to that regarding the students with
good results, i.e. clusters can be created according to the time
used for task solution. In this case, three groups can be created
(Figure 11):
neglectful and superficial ones,
sober-minded but not persistent enough and
persistent and diligent ones.
Figure 10: Relation between time consumption and total score of
the whole sample
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