Improvement by practice continues in both morning and afternoon groups, but the morning group improves faster across weeks¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 1912 · checked against its sources 2026-10-24 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The morning group improved on its preliminary record by 6.2, 11.3 and 14.9 per cent over three weeks, while the afternoon group improved 2.2, 4.4 and 9.6 per cent. → Winch 1912

Evidence¶

Winch 1912¶

Winch, W. H. (1912). Mental fatigue in day school children as measured by immediate memory: Part I. Journal of Educational Psychology, 3(1), 18–28. doi:10.1037/h0070728

q2 · i? · causal · r1

Gross weekly comparison of Groups A (morning) and B (afternoon) from Table II. Improvement by practice was still obvious in both groups, but "Group A is improving faster than Group B", and the difference is taken as a measure of the difference in mental energy between 9.45 a.m. and 4 p.m.

"in the first week the morning group improved on its record in the preliminary tests-to the extent of 6.2fi per cent., calculated as a percentage on the average of the four preliminary tests; in the second week 11.3 per cent., and in the third week 14.9 per cent.; whilst the afternoon group improved on its pre- liminary record in the first week 2.2 per cent."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• About one in seven boys in the afternoon group ceased to improve and tended downwards, compared with one in the morning group — related
• Late-afternoon memory work shows relative inefficiency of about 5-6 per cent compared with early-morning work in 13-year-old boys — related
• In a London boys' school class, the group working problematic arithmetic later in the morning improved about 5 per cent more than the group working it early — related
• In a London girls' school class, the group working problematic arithmetic later in the morning improved about 5 or 6 per cent more than the early group — related
• Exception: the top section of afternoon workers did better work than the corresponding morning section — reports the opposite
• In one class of 13-year-old boys, memory scores were kept to a steady rank order by repeated practice (successive tests correlating +.87 to +.90) before fatigue testing began — related
• A letter-cancellation practice group outperformed a control group in the first parts-of-speech test period — related
• Psychological methods of fatigue measurement afford useful average values and reliable information about the course and effect of fatigue (Offner) — a broader claim this one bears on
• During the final fatigue test, time per problem rose gradually, then markedly, with no obvious correlation between time and accuracy — related
• Section-by-section analyses in the infants and girls' series show the later-working group's advantage across proficiency levels, while the boys' series shows the reverse in every section. — reports the opposite
• In a boys' school where three-fourths of pupils rose early for work, the earlier-working group (9.40 A.M.) improved more (about 14 per cent) than the later-working group (11.30 A.M., 9 per cent). — related