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Abstract
Main idea is an important part of elementary curriculum. Because there has been poor success in teaching this skill, the question arises as to whether this skill is appropriate at this grade level. When a passage contains no explicit organization cues it is necessary to construct the relationships in order to determine main idea. This suggests that such a task might be formal operational since it involves inferring possible subordinate relationships in accordance with the principles of logic. The present research investigated the relationship of the ability to determine unstated main idea with Piagetian cognitive level at the transitional period between concrete and formal operations.
Subjects were 127 sixth-grade children from neighboring schools in south Omaha. The mean age was 12 years 1 month, and the median score for the group was at the 59th percentile on the reading comprehension subtest of the California Achievement Test.
A multiple choice main idea test consisting of ten paragraphs written at fourth or fifth grade readability and containing no organizational cues was devised and field tested with similar sixth graders.
Piagetian level was determined using weight and volume conservation tasks devised by Piaget and replicated by Elkind. One of two clay balls was deformed and the subject asked whether the weight, then the volume, had changed. Subjects were required to answer both a judgment and an explanation question correctly in order to be classified as conservers. The population fell into three Piagetian groups: nonconservers of both weight and volume, conservers of weight, and conservers of both.
A Kendall's tau was calculated to determine relationships between the main idea score and Piagetian group. The resulting correlation was significant (p < .05). It was concluded that there is a slight but significant relationship between ability to determine unstated main idea and Piagetian cognitive level in this study.
The unstated main task appears to be more appropriate for formal operational subjects. Future research should broaden the scope of main idea tasks and range of subject ages to further determine appropriate tasks for various development stages.
