Verbal aptitude in Cuban students of basic secondary

Abstract

The teaching-learning process still privileges logical knowledge an aspect that limits the development of verbal aptitude; therefore, the objective of the study was to characterize verbal aptitude in Lower Secondary students. The research paradigm was quantitative, with a descriptive-correlational type of study. Strata randomized the sample of 221 students. Interviews, document analysis and the BAIRES-A Test were applied. Medium-low levels of verbal aptitude development predominated. The scores were similar in the three school grades, with a slight trend towards improvement in 9th grade. In seventh and eighth grade, the main difficulty was identifying definitions, and in 9th grade, identifying synonyms. It was shown that the greater the ability to identify synonyms, the greater the ability to conceptualize definitions and vice versa, which may indicate a general verbal aptitude factor common to both tasks.