nicole kotras masters thesis

Stage 5
The most frequently suggested thematic changes were incorporated into the revised
experimental set of pictures. The afore-mentioned graphic designer was involved in
making these changes. This resulted in the development of the "Revised pictures"
and hence, progression to the quantitative phase of the study.
A similar "re-drawing" procedure was carried out by Lerman, Ross and McLauchlin
(1965) and Greenwood (1986). These authors found that a number of words in the
Word Intelligibility by Picture Identification test (WIPI) were not familiar to a significant
percentage of subjects tested. Consequently pictures which were ambiguous, poorly
drawn, or confusing in terms of foreground-background were redrawn.
Research Approach
METHODOLOGY FOR THE QUANTITATIVE PHASE
To empirically investigate the second aim of the study, descriptive investigations
were undertaken. The performance of Black, Coloured, Indian and White children between
60 and 83 months of age, from three language (English, Afrikaans and Xhosa) and
socio-economic groups (upper, middle and lower) were described in terms of their
responses given to either of the two large revised Griffiths pictures. Furthermore, the
number of correct responses made for each of the 20 small pictures for each cultural group
in general, as well as in relation to subject variables (age in months, SES, language group,
and gender) for each of the small pictures was undertaken.
South African research on the Griffiths Scales has indicated that numerous variables
can be responsible for affecting test performance (Allan, 1988, 1992; Bhamjee, 1991;
Hanson, Aldridge Smith & Humes, 1985;). A consistent finding in these studies has been
the influence of an individual's cultural group on test performance (Allan, 1988, 1992;
Heimes, 1983; Mothuloe, 1990; Tukulu, 1996). As all the extraneous variables of any study
cannot be totally controlled by either holding them constant or building them into the design,
any comparisons of the performance of individuals from the different cultural, language,
gender and socio-economic groups need to be interpreted with considerable caution. Due to
the present study being exploratory in nature, possible extraneous variables were
considered and it was decided by the researcher to treat the cultural groups separately,
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