The two word lists were confirmed to be of equal difficulty before practice, with a correlation of +.93 between performance on the two lists¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causalr1·q3
Currency · newest study 1913 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
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This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i? Before the practice period, the two 30-word lists showed practically identical difficulty (averages 5.5 and 5.7) with a correlation coefficient of +.93 between individual boys' performance on the two lists. → Winch 1913
Evidence¶
Winch 1913¶
Winch, W. H. (1913). Experimental researches on learning to spell. I. The Journal of Educational Psychology. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1412810
q3 · i? · causal · r1
The preliminary dictation test was given on Friday, January 31st, 1913, before any practice. Words were selected from a Standard III reading book for a Standard II class. The near-identity of averages and the high correlation confirmed the lists were matched in difficulty for these boys.
"Before learning, the results for Set A averaged 5.5, those for Set B averaged 5.7. The correlation-coefficient between the A list and the B list is +.93. The difference between the averages is .2 and the 'probable error' of this difference is .19. This means a practical identity of difficulty between the two lists"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- A combined visual-motor-articulatory-auditory spelling method with teacher-directed attention produces better spelling than a predominantly visual silent method in young low-ability boys — related
- Wells' proposed equally-difficult easy list was not fully standardized, with sick, open, and glad producing non-uniform responses — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
equal-difficulty-word-lists-confirmed-high-correlation |
title |
The two word lists were confirmed to be of equal difficulty before practice, with a correlation of +.93 between performance on the two lists |
description |
The two word lists were confirmed to be of equal difficulty before practice, with a correlation of +.93 between performance on the two lists |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
1913 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-24 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — winch-1913 |
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