Word fluency a comparative study of word fluency in European and Maori high school pupils

Abstract

This study deals with the word fluency production of several small groups of urban and rural high school pupils of European, and Maori, descent. Its principal aim is to examine in detail the results obtained from administering the Word Fluency Test of the SRA PMA battery (Thurstone, 1949), to 143 pupils (total sample), and to offer some practical suggestions based upon this examination. The ethnic groups which comprise the total sample are not nationally representative, but they are sufficiently removed from one another, geographically speaking, to provide a useful regional contrast. In both its outlook and its methodology the study is a psychological one. It springs from a suggestion made by Ritchie (1963) after he had noticed that a group of Maori high school pupils at Panguru appeared to score more highly on the Word Fluency Test than did a related group of European pupils. He felt that this apparent Maori superiority might be worthy of further investigation.