A Comparison of Stress as Measured by Heartbeat Rate of Sixth-Grade Students During Teaching-Learning Activities in Solving Verbal Problems in a Classroom Setting Page: 2

                                
Christopher, Carolyn Joy, A Comparison of Stress As
Measured by Heartbeat Rate of Sixth-Grade Students During
Teaching-Learning Activities In Solving Verbal Problems In
A Classroom Setting. Doctor of Philosophy (Administrative
Leadership), August, 1979, 104 pps., 10 tables, 2 illustra-
tions, bibliography, 73 titles.
The problem of this study was to measure, to compare,
and to analyze the amount of stress, as indicated by heart-
beat rate, experienced by students during teaching-learning
activities in sixth-grade mathematics in a regular class-
room. The bases for comparison were the heartbeat rates of
selected students as recorded by a cardiotachometer and
achievement scores on pretests and posttests dealing with
verbal problems. All data were analyzed using the t-tests
for the significance of the difference between the means.
The population for the study was composed of the entire
sixth-grade class of 463 members in one middle school of a
large urban school district. A matched-pairs sample of
twenty-four students was selected and was used in a pretest-
posttest control group design.
A nine-day instructional period was utilized to conduct
the study. On the first day, the mean base or normal heart-
beat rate was determined for each student. The pretests
were administered the second day. Days three through eight
involved teaching-learning activities with the control group
taught by the standard approach and the experimental group