Group Factors of Attainment in Grammar School Subjects

S ummary . Previous factorial studies of attainment have been largely confined to a restricted range of subjects, and have not revealed a clear pattern of results. In the present study an analysis is made of the attainments of 173 boys in a balanced range of eleven subjects (English, French, Latin, history, geography, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry and biology) after a three‐year grammar school course. In a centroid analysis the general factor proved to be by far the most important (accounting for about 40 per cent. of the total variance), while the signs of the bipolar factors indicated the linkage of (i) arithmetic, algebra and geometry (i.e., a mathematical factor) and (ii) physics, chemistry and biology (i.e., a scientific factor) as additional and separate group factors. Some evidence for the partial separation of history and geography from English, French and Latin was also seen. A subsequent group factor analysis confirmed the existence of the mathematical and scientific factors as being of roughly equal importance. The importance of the latter is probably related to the organized teaching of general science in the schools concerned

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