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Method
Participants
Subjects
for our study consisted of volunteers from Rowland Hall-St. Mark’s upper
school. Because the entire upper school population had equal
opportunity to volunteer for our study, we obtained subjects who were
representative of the student body with respect to age and gender.
We obtained 22 subjects ranging in age from 13-19.
Eight subjects were female and 12 were male.
Materials
When the subjects entered
the testing room, they were given a packet of questionnaires and a pencil.
The packet contained; (1) a consent form (see Appendix C), (2) a sheet
numbered 1-25 providing enough space for the subjects to draw their symbols (see
Appendix D), (3) a questionnaire on their belief in ESP (see Appendix E) and (4)
the Norwicki-Strickland questionnaire entitled Locus of Control Scale for
Children (see Appendix F). The ESP
survey consisted of four questions. Each
question first defined an ESP phenomenon. Then the subjects were asked to rate their belief in each
phenomenon on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being “Certainly No” and 5 being
“Certainly Yes.” The four
phenomena were telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and telekinesis.
The Norwicki-Strickland questionnaire is a 40-item yes/no questionnaire
and is based on Rotter’s (1966) arrangement of perceived internal and external
locus of control. The items on the locus of control questionnaire describe
situations across interpersonal and motivational areas.
High scores reflect an external locus of control.
For the actual ESP test, we
constructed a set of Zener cards. Each
card was blank on one side, but had one of the five symbols on the other side.
Since pre-made Zener cards were not available, the cards were constructed
of poster board cut to a 3 x 5 size. The
following five symbols were used; square, circle, star, triangle, and an X (see
Appendix A). When the subjects were
assembled, instructions were read for the ESP test (see Appendix B).
A stopwatch was used to ensure that exactly 5 seconds was spent on each
card.
During a morning meeting, we announced
that we were performing a study on ESP and needed volunteers.
The students were asked to sign up with one of us at the end of morning
meeting, at which time they were told to meet in the appointed room the
following day during advisory. The study was preformed during two separate advisory periods
held on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at RHSM School.
Procedure
On the day of testing, we gave each
subject the packet of questionnaires and forms, and then began to administer the
ESP test. One researcher read the
instructions (see Appendix B) to the group, and asked if there were any
questions. She then turned on the
overhead projector, which provided the students with the various shapes that
were in the deck of cards. Before
the actual ESP trial began, another researcher shuffled the cards to be certain
that the order was random. The
first researcher faced the group and held the deck of cards in her hand.
She looked at the symbol on each card and attempted to “send the
appropriate signal” to the students for 5 seconds.
After viewing each card, she placed the card face down on the table.
As she was “sending the signal,” another member of the group wrote
down the symbol she was viewing so as provide a “key” for later scoring
purposes. The test was administered
to the group of students as a whole. After
the ESP test had been administered, the students were instructed to fill out the
rest of the questionnaires. As the
students turned in their packets, they were provided with a cookie to compensate
them for the time that they spent participating in the study.
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