Effects of Ethnic Background, Response Option, Task Complexity and Sex on Information Processing in Concept Attainment.
The effects of (1) Navaho, Spanish, and Anglo-American ethnic backgrounds, ( 2 ) response options of inclusion, exclusion, and indeterminate categorization, ( 3 ) two degrees of stimulus complexity, and ( 4 ) sex were examined during information processing in concept attainment. Subjects were a stratified sample of eighty four ninth grade students selected from all the ninth grade students attending a Bloomfield, New Mexico, municipal school. The dependent variable consisted of responses to the Tagatz Information Processing Test (TIPT). A 3x3x2x2 repeated measures analysis of variance yielded four significant sources of variance. The hierarchial mean performances were each significantly different from the other. The ethnic group by response option interaction indicated that the hierarchy of Navaho, Spanish, and Anglo-American was not evident for items of indeterminate categorization. For items of this type, the means of the three groups were not statistically different from each other. The response of sti...