Sociological Elements and Achievement

Most young children are Adult Motivated; they want to please their parents and teachers. Around third grade, many become Peer Motivated, when it is more important for them to have peer rather than adult approval. Two decades ago, studies revealed that children rarely became Peer Motivated before seventh or eighth grade (Dunn & Dunn, 1972). Today, they become Peer Motivated early and remain that way longer.

Average achievers usually change from being Peer Motivated and become Self-Motivated by ninth or tenth grade or shortly thereafter. Although gifted children enter school wanting to please the adults in their lives, by first or second grade, most become Self-Motivated , Learning-Alone preferents, and rarely go through a “peer” stage. Underachievers remain Peer Motivated longer than either gifted or “average” achievers. We have not found more than 28% of any group to be Peer Motivated and, within that category, Peer Motivated youngsters learn better with just one classmate than in a small group (Dunn & Dunn, 1992, 1993; Dunn, Dunn, & Perrin, 1994).

Within the 28% of students who are Teacher Motivated, some want a collegial teacher whereas others prefer an authoritative teacher. Finally, in three different studies, at-risk-students required a collegial adult but had been required to learn with an authoritative adult (Gadwa & Griggs, 1985 & Johnson, 1984).

Wallace, 1990 examined the achievement of elementary school students when their strong preferences for learning alone or learning with peers had been identified and they were allowed to choose whether to learn alone or with peers in each of five lessons. The 114 subjects, of whom 34 were later selected for this study, were the students of five social studies teachers who volunteered to take a course on learning styles. The Learning Style Inventory (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1989) was administered to each student to ascertain whether he/she had a strong preference for learning alone or with peers. The 34 students selected for the study on the basis of their having a strong preference were introduced to a small group learning method and taught five lessons with the option of working alone or with peers each time. The students were tested after each lesson. The results yielded by ANCOVA revealed that the students who were identified as strongly preferring to learn alone achieved significantly higher mean lesson-test scores than students identified as strongly preferring to learn with peers. Students identified as strongly preferring to learn alone did not achieve significantly higher when they opted to learn alone; students identified as strongly preferring to learn with peers did not achieve significantly higher when they opted to learn with peers.

One hundred and twenty-eight fifth and sixth graders in an inner-city, elementary school in New York City were administered the Dunn, Dunn, and Price Learning Style Inventory (1984). Forty who had indicated sociological preferences for either Learning Alone (n=22) or Learning With Peers (n=18) were assigned randomly to two instructional groups. Students then were taught career awareness and decision-making concepts in conditions that were both congruent and incongruent with their diagnosed preferences (Miles, 1987).

Data revealed that the matching of sociological preferences with complementary grouping patterns increased career awareness achievement (p < .01) and career-decision-making (p < .01) significantly. Additionally, students’ attitude scores were statistically higher when they were taught career awareness (p < .01) and career-decision making concepts (p < .05) in patterns that accommodated their preferences. Other significant differences demonstrated that students matched with their preferences for Learning Alone scored statistically higher (p < .05) than those individuals preferring to learn with their peers. Data evidenced however, that with the exception of career awareness achievement, neither group achieved better than the other; what was crucial was the matching of individual students’ preferences for either Learning Alone or with Peers and the instructional grouping pattern assigned. Furthermore, a test/retest administration of the LSI demonstrated that the subjects’ sociological preferences for either Learning Alone (.79) or with Peers (.80) remained consistent throughout this investigation (Miles, 1987).