A Meta-Analysis of Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment

A META-ANALYSIS OF FEUERSTEIN'S INSTRUMENTAL ENRICHMENT BY JANET LILLIAN SHIELL B.Ed. (Secondary), The University of British Columbia, 1976 M.Ed. (Counselling Psychology), The University of British Columbia, 1984 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMEN15FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES Centre for the Study of Curriculum and Instruction We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA April 2002 © Janet Lillian Shiell, 2002 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of The University of Vancouver, Canada DE-6 (2/88) Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of Instrumental Enrichment, an educational program developed by Reuven Feuerstein, which attempts to improve an individual's ability to reason. A meta-analysis was performed on studies that had been conducted between the years 1979 to 1996. Thirty-six studies were analyzed according to their results from measurements in the cognitive/visual-perceptual, academic achievement and affective domains. The results from the meta-analysis were mixed. There were significant combined effect sizes of 0.24 for non-verbal ability, 1.41 for verbal ability, and 0.60 for one combination of full-scale ability. Significant effect sizes for measures of visual perception and visual-motor ability were 0.42, 0.71 and 1.68. There were also significant effect sizes for general achievement and for one combination of math achievement at 0.26 and 0.29 respectively. The intellectual achievement locus of control effect size was significant at 0.33. (Cohen (1988) considers an effect size of 0.20 to be small, that of 0.50 to be of medium size, and that of 0.80 to be large.) All effect sizes for reading were nonsignificant as was that for the Learning Potential Assessment Device. All other measures, such as those for self-confidence, self-concept, motivation and attitudes, in the affective domain were nonsignificant. One effect size for motivation and attitudes was significantly negative, indicating that the control group out• performed the treatment group. The results are discussed in terms of near- and far-transfer of learning. ii Table of Contents Abstract Table of Contents List of Tables Acknowledgements Chapter One: Cognitive Orientations to Curriculum Theoretical Background The Beginnings: Piaget's Stages and Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development Theories of Critical Thinking Instrumental Enrichment Structural Cognitive Modifiability Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) 1 Chapter Two: Literature Review of Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment 1 Goals 1 Curriculum 1 Literature Review 2 Individual Studies 2 Groups of Studies Intelligence Summary of Evaluations Importance of the Study Chapter Three: Literature Review of Meta-Analysis Definitions Usefulness • Critique Theory Development Type II Errors Validity Reliability Homogeneity Sources of Variation and Generalizability Bias The File-Drawer Problem Quality Multiple Publications Sample Size Studies With More Than One Statistic Unbiased Estimate of Effect Size Procedure Literature Search Inclusion-exclusion criteria Data Collection Statistical Analysis Choosing Estimates of Effect iii Calculations for the Unbiased Estimator of Effect Size for Each Study 55 Interpretation of Effect Sizes 56 Chapter Four: Methodology 58 Methodology • 58 Criteria Used to Include or Exclude Specific Studies 58 Quality of Individual Studies 61 Statistical Methodology 63 The File-Drawer Problem 64 The Hawthorne Effect 64 Chapter Five: Results •• 66 Overall Effect Sizes 66 Near and Far Transfer 67 Chapter Six: Discussion 71 Near Transfer 73 Mid-Transfer 74 Far Transfer 75 Subgoals of Instrumental Enrichment .76 Chapter Seven: Implications for Practice and Research 78 Implications for Practice 78 Affective Domain Instruction ~. 78 Counselling 79 Academic Instruction and IE 80 Implications for Research 81 The LP AD 81 Teacher Effectiveness and Bridging 82 Further Analysis of Data in this Meta-Analysis 83 Brain Research 83 Limitations of this Study 84 References 86 Appendix A: Summary of Studies Used, Measures and Effect Sizes 96 Appendix B: Summary of Studies Not Used 142 Appendix C: Results from Random Effects Analysis 146 Appendix D: Significant Results Information 152 Appendix E: Nonsignificant Results Information , 156 Appendix F: Effect Sizes from F-Tests and Reported Effect Sizes 161 iv List of Tables 1. Summary of Included and Excluded Studies 61 2. Summary of Transfer Results 70 v Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep appreciation to the members of my doctoral committee for their guidance and support. Thanks to Dr. Hillel Goelman for shepherding the dissertation process through university administration, and for his encouragement and humour when I despaired. Thanks to Dr. Michael Schulzer for his patience while explaining many statistical methods and formulae. The meta-analysis was a complicated procedure and Michael's assistance was invaluable. Thanks also to Dr. Marilyn Samuels for her insightful comments regarding the Instrumental Enrichment program and research related to it. yi Chapter One Cognitive Orientations To Curriculum The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of an educational program, developed by Reuven Feuerstein and colleagues, which attempts to improve an individual's ability to reason. Trained as a clinical psychologist, Feuerstein became involved in the psychological assessment of Jewish children who were being resettled in Israel after World War II. Many had experienced poverty and deprivation, and many were Holocaust survivors. The majority of these children also scored on standardized intelligence tests in the retarded range. Because of these circumstances, Feuerstein began to reconsider traditional notions of intelligence and its measurement. He also began to explore the development of an educational intervention to enhance cognitive functioning during adolescence. That intervention, the focus of this study, is known as "Instrumental Enrichment" (Feuerstein, Klein, and Tannenbaum, 1991; Feuerstein, Rand, M.B. Hoffman, & Miller, 1980; Yates, 1987). Although there are many programs designed to encourage or improve cognitive development, I have chosen Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment (FIE or IE) for several reasons. In the early 1990's, I was trained to teach the first half of the Instrumental Enrichment program and to administer its related assessment tool, the Learning Potential Assessment Device. I was very impressed by the methods used and the enthusiastic acceptance of them by participants in the learning groups. I reviewed the literature to see what had been written about the effectiveness of FIE and found a mixture of results. Most authors, at least on an intuitive level, believed the program was, or could be, effective, but there seemed to be more success in some areas than in others. I did a small meta-analysis in 1993 to explore FIE's overall effectiveness and found that it appeared to be most successful when measured with assessment instruments closest to the material used in the program, and it did not seem to be 1 effective at all in the affective domain. There were methodological difficulties in the execution of my analysis, however, and I wanted to do a more thorough and carefully designed meta-analysis with as many studies, published and unpublished, as I could obtain. This will be an exploratory, descriptive study, not meant to prove or disprove the effectiveness of FIE or the theory behind it. I had no a priori hypotheses at the beginning of the study; the research questions arose from the literature review. Before discussing Feuerstein's theory and methods in detail later in this chapter and in Chapter Two, I will first describe the contributions of other theorists toward our understanding of intelligence and the process of learning. This is so we can be aware of the background within which Feuerstein formed his ideas. The first half of the chapter will present theories under the sub-headings: The Beginnings and Theories of Critical Thinking. The second half of the chapter will present an introduction to FIE and a presentation of Feuerstein's theories of Structural Cognitive Modifiability and the Mediated Learning Experience (MLE). Theoretical Background The Beginnings: Piaget's Stages and Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development Jean Piaget. Jean Piaget, whose model encompasses mainly the first 15 years of life, wrote about cognition in relation to the developmental process (Piaget, 1952, 1971,1985). He argued that the major function of intelligence is to help children adapt to the environment. Children construct their own logical structures through interaction with the environment and move from one stage to another through the process of equilibration. They experience disequilibrium when they confront aspects of the environment that cannot be resolved using their currently available schemes. The process of equilibration, that is, finding a balance between the assimilation of new information

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