04/09/2020
For the remaining questions of this exam, you will read the brief article posted below and then
respond to the questions that follow.
Tommy's December birthday creates a quandary for his parents: Which year
should he start kindergarten? If they enroll him in kindergarten the year he
turns five, he will be one of the youngest children in the class. If they wait a
year, he will be one of the oldest. Which is better?
Older is better, advise Zvia Breznitz and Tamar Teltsch, professors in the
School of Education at the University of Haifa in Israel. These researchers
base their opinion on a study of 137 children the researchers identified as
early starters or late starters.
Early starters are the youngest kindergartners: They start school at age four
and turn five during their kindergarten year. Late starters are the oldest.
These five year olds turn six between January and March of their kindergarten
year.
The children were tested as first-graders and then again as fourth-graders. In
both grades, late starters scored higher on reading and mathematics
achievement than did early starters. But academic achievement is only part of
the story. The older children felt less anxiety and had higher self esteem than
the younger children. Later starters were also more popular with their
classmates than early starters.
Although age does not determine any child's success, the research makes a
strong case for giving your child the advantage of being the oldest in the
class.
Write a response to the following prompts.
Q1. Write a research question that might have been used in this study. Q2. Write a hypothesis that might have been used for this study. Q3. List the independent and one or more dependent variables in this
study.
Q4. What might be some extraneous variables in this study?
Q5. List some undefined concepts mentioned in this article. Q6. Descriptive studies do NOT
a) study relationships between variables.
b) tell why something occurred.
c) use operational definitions.
d) use concepts.
e) Descriptive studies DO all of the above.
Q8. List and briefly define three important ethical guidelines for researchers.
Q9. Identify the independent and dependent variables in the followin