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This article focuses on the usefulness of self-teaching devices and programmed materials in educational research. Articles on self-teaching devices and programmed materials generally cluster into three groups. These include general discussion paper, programming experiments and studies in which conventional instructional procedures are compared with programmed instruction. The experiments on programming variables have concentrated on three problem areas. The first problem area concerns the definition of the responses the student makes to the items. This includes comparisons of different response modes. A second problem area centers on the methods of eliciting the desired responses from the student. This includes the step size and the sequencing problems and comparisons of different prompting and confirmation methods. The third problem area centers on the adaptation of programs to individual differences. This includes the problems of branching, pacing, and repetition.

This paper explores representative and quasi-representative designs for research on teaching. It seeks merely to reconstruct and extend some old ideas for inclusion in the field that might be called the metatheory or comparative methodology of educational research. In so doing, however, it suggests that some rather unconventional additions and revisions in the design and analysis of educational experiments may be needed. It becomes apparent that the biggest threat to external validity may come when the experiment does not fit the nature of the behavior being studied and, furthermore, does not include the means of discovering this fact.

This article notes that one of the major ways in which programmed instructional material differs from other instructional resources is the fact that students are required to respond actively to the program. Depending upon the particular program, students may respond by constructing their answer, picking from a number of available alternatives, or some combination of these. This area of research has become identified as the response mode issue, and it is the purpose of this paper to review some of these findings and to suggest several hypotheses regarding the importance of overt responding arising from recent research.

This article focuses on the research on the use of questions in teaching. The purpose of this paper is to define the present state of research knowledge in this subject matter and to suggest some contributions which can be made by researchers who are interested in improving the quality of classroom teaching. Although textbook and examination questions undoubtedly make a contribution to the learning process, this article limits the review for the most part to studies of spoken questions which occur during regular classroom teaching, particularly classroom discussions.

This article reviews the research publications on selection, preparation and professionalization of personnel specialists. The research emphasized that counselors are drawn largely from the teaching ranks, characterized as a process extending from a teacher's evidenced interest in guidance work to his evaluation during a practicum experience. The researchers agreed upon the importance as well as the difficulty of assessing counselor personality characteristics. The research is limited largely to questionnaire surveys and position papers. The current debates are inevitable and desirable concomitants of professional growth and hope to see them soon paralleled by basic research.

This article deals with research in each of the major fields of vocational, technical, and practical arts education. This paper will be limited to a discussion of the current status of research in vocational education and the practical arts and a review of significant research which cuts across or is relevant to two or more of the several major fields. The authors of the article point out that each field is highly compartmentalized with little extension beyond the subject matter area for which it was planned. References to this research indicate a much closer relationship between vocational educators and academic researchers. The two glaring deficiencies in this research field are the inadequate treatment of principles of curricular experimentation and of principles of teaching and learning.

This article discusses the administration of instructional materials. The studies and authoritative papers which are reported here and which bring these articles up to date have been organized into the following categories, namely, school trends and instructional materials; professionalization studies; national evaluative criteria; dissemination studies; county and state audio-visual-instructional-materials programs; school and school-system programs; college and university programs; and physical-facilities and equipment studies.

This article presents the general circumstance and factors affecting teaching and learning in the U.S. The general conditions under which instruction is carried on have a great deal to do with the teaching and learning process. These general factors are beyond the immediate control of the classroom teacher and depend to a considerable extent upon an adequate supervisory program. Motivation, relation of class size to instruction and learning, problems of discipline and related personality traits, the use of instructional materials as related to learning, conditions relating to measuring the results of teaching, such as the use of examinations, marking papers, but not including a treatment of standardized tests, teaching and supervising the study of pupils and miscellaneous conditions which are primarily matters of supervision. The older treatment of discipline in the literature of education had its basis in authority, whereas, the more recent treatment has tended to make use of the results of scientific investigation. Several investigations were carried on to determine the value of one type of teaching material as compared with another type of material.

This article presents a research on the reinvention of response-contingent testing (RCT). The basic idea of RCT is to give initial information concerning a person's ability and with the aid of the computer an item designed to effect the greatest reduction in the uncertainty about the person's true ability is presented according to the author. It is evident that RCT has much to contribute to decision-making and finds a natural home in instructional systems designed to tailor instruction to individual.

The article discusses various studies on science teaching. The article specifically refers to philosophical and historical studies on science teaching. A study by the National Science Teachers Association to analyze structure in science was conduced in 1964. The study described seven approaches and five major items in the process of science. Another study in 1968 discussed several concepts of the methodology of the science such as correlational procedures, exact procedures, rules of correspondence, metaphysical principles and constructs.

This article presents a discussion on teaching mathematics at the college and university level. At this level, the two important requirements for the improvement of the teaching of mathematics are the presence of well-trained mathematicians as teachers and a modern program of courses. In the college and universities, it is well known that the supply of well-trained teachers is short of the demand. The sort of training mathematicians need for college teaching is well-recognized, and the efficacy of this procedure is well authenticated. Reference may be made to the Ph.D. programs of American Universities. the second vital need in mathematics teaching at the college and university level is a mathematics, curriculum that includes a modern program of courses. Studies of researchers presented the importance of the selection and enrollment of mathematics students on colleges and universities. Samples in the modern program of mathematics are being developed, and experimentally oriented research will reveal the changes that should be made.

This article deals with theoretical formulations in audiovisual communications. Well-known social trends have affected the theoretical formulations in the field of audiovisual research. They included expansion of population, with a higher percentage to be served in schools; changing occupational needs of society leading to expectations of new educational functions for the schools; concentration of population in urban areas; rapid mobility of people, including greatly expanded overseas travel; unprecedented discovery, organization, and restructuring of knowledge; and a nationwide demand for higher-level education, with a greater concern for excellence or quality.

This article discusses the usefulness of instrumentation in educational research. It is noted that instrumentation has provided interesting vistas and pathways for the educational researcher, and also demonstrated that many of its principles can be used without the aid of mechanics. It is quite possible that, through research in instrumentation, educational researchers can significantly improve classroom instruction if they conclude that instruments should not be used at all.

This article focuses on the measurement and prediction of special abilities. Available tests for the measurement of aptitudes for scientific work tend to include measures of mathematical abilities, quantitative thinking, and special categories of information. The aptitudes for professional work include engineering, music and art, law, medical and dental aptitudes, nursing and teaching. Numerous studies have dealt with aspects of pupil achievement as criteria of teaching effectiveness. These studies constitute basic research upon the criteria which must be involved in the development of any effective tests of aptitude for teaching. It is hoped that the ideas involved in these studies can be assimilated and used in a program of objective testing of special abilities needed in effective teaching.

This article presents the analysis of a study on the empirical basis for performance-based teacher education. The analysis lead to three conclusions: (1) The research literature in the correlation between teacher behavior and student achievement does not offer an empirical basis for the prescription of teacher-training objectives (2) The research literature fails to provide such a basis, not because of minor flaws in the statistical analyses, but because of sterile operational definitions of both teaching and achievement and because of fundamentally weak research designs (3) The well-documented, strong association between student achievement and variables such as socioeconomic status and ethnic status.

This article discusses the local control over formal education in two American-Indian communities. The American school system has attempted to develop particular capabilities in minority groups members in the hope of aiding them toward economic improvement. The conclusion which seems to emerge from the preliminary investigation is that the contribution of community control over education lies not primarily in the opportunity for local residents to determine financial and administrative matters. Rather, the contribution of community control rests in the opportunity for them to control how subjects are taught. Formal education can contribute to American Indian survival only if Indian children identify with the school as a relevant part of the environment. The psychological and practical foundation to initiate reform can then be expected to develop among American Indian students.

This article discusses the contributions of sociology to the study of the classroom. Sociologists point to structural factors in the organization of teaching, producing so much variability in how teachers carry out instructional activities. Participation rates of students in typical classrooms suggest that a tutorial model of teacher-student interaction will prove quite inadequate to explain student learning. Studies of the effect of classroom status systems on the teacher and on student learning point to the necessity for conventionalizing any statements concerning teacher effectiveness. Another contribution of sociologist to classroom learning deals with the teacher's role as a bureaucratic figure in the school.

This article provides information on the methods of developing and using student rating forms of college teaching in the U.S. Although faculty resistance to the use of student rating forms may stem partially from the fact that many rating forms have been prepared by groups or individuals not highly qualified to construct such instruments. Proponents of student ratings have held that the validity of these objections is testable and have stressed the value of ratings for the individual faculty member and for the department and college as a whole.

This article discusses the professional role discontinuities in educational careers. Bureaucracy has several benefits for institutions, bureaucrats, and clients it serves. Bureaucracy also protects the bureaucrat and his client from idiosyncratic, personally-toned relationships by pre-determined categories of interaction. In conclusion of this review, the author finds Weber's theory of bureaucracy a useful construct for examining research on educational role transition. Moreover, Getzels' socio-psychological model of culture, institution, and the individual serves as an elegant analytical tools as Getzels and his colleagues have shown in the static analysis of social behavior. If the model is useful in conceptualizing research on such diverse groups as school teachers and college presidents, it promises to be useful for the analysis of other educational roles.

The article discusses various issues related to the study and teaching of mathematics. The author specifically points out two major research area in this context, one is personal characteristics of teachers and second is teacher classroom behavior. The author presents information on several studies on mathematics teaching conducted during 1964 to 1968. One of the studies was conducted by the Minnesota National Laboratory for the Improvement of Secondary Mathematics to evaluate experimental curricular materials of the School Mathematics Study Group. Another study established a test of skill which is very helpful in solving mathematics teaching problems.

The article focuses on mathematics education research. The article presents information on several studies which are categorized into eight different areas. These studies were aimed at bringing drastic changes in mathematical learning by including the systematic contents of the discipline. The author specifically points out the trends in research on the learning and teaching of mathematics. The author also presents a brief summary of the research in several areas including, the effectiveness of instructional programs, the association of learner characteristics with mathematical achievement and attitudes toward mathematics.

The article attempts to analyze research and development efforts in the creation of adequate sequence theory in mathematics learning and to suggest effective approaches to advance the development of sequence theory. The author points out the structure of mathematics course content. Information on a several studies including one which identified major components of the structure of a discipline and another which proposed instructional sequences that require the pupil to follow a particular kind of path through a content structure.

This article presents the research on learner variables and educational media. Educators long have sought ways to adapt group methods of instruction in such ways that all children in the group progress at acceptable rates and reach satisfactory levels of achievement in reasonable amounts of time. Group teaching methods with some fixed set of material normally fail to achieve the purpose according to the author. There were attempts to find ways to meet individual needs by group methods that tends to encounter confusion to three important parts of the problem which are criteria, learning variables and choice among the methods for attempting to adapt group teaching to individual needs.

This article reviews the research which explores the problems of teaching previously selected substantive content in vocational, technical and practical arts education. The author emphasizes those studies which utilized an experimental design and quasi-experimental studies. There has been some research interest in ascertaining the degree to which individuals acquire information not specifically included in the deliberate instructional presentations. The increasing number of studies in techniques and modes of instruction is an encouraging sign of healthy concern with an area of vital educational importance according to the author.

This article explores the relationship between educational objectives and educational media that includes the nature and extent of the contribution which media and technology have made to the achievement of given objectives. The direct assessment of the effects of media on education is simply not feasible according to the author. The role of media technology in giving operational definition to educational objectives are investigated by the author. Further research on the relevant distinction between two major types of instructional conditions which were termed extemporaneous design and pre-design.

This article discusses research on testing in the evaluation of curriculum development in the U.S. The emphasis on measuring the discrepancy between intended and attained behaviors usually relies on the ability of the educator to specify and measure critical behavior. Another class of evaluation strategies emphasizes collecting information most relevant to the decisions a curriculum developer must make. The decisions of purchase, allocation of teaching resources, decisions of arranging the instructional setting, and adapting the curricular program to student needs and capability are emphasized in the third class of strategies for evaluation.

This article provides a review of studies of methods and concepts in classroom research in the U.S. The article deals with five specific problems of classroom research as they are handled in recent programs of investigation: coverage, methods of data collection, unit of analysis, conceptual posture and concepts used. The author of this article outlines various criteria used to specify the type of classroom with which particular investigations have been concerned. In this article the reader is cautioned that this brief treatment must of necessity do some violence to the studies cited.

This article presents a review on theoretical formulations for research on teaching in the U.S. Writing of this kind has appeared in some abundance, as befits a field of research that has not yet achieved the new paradigms that are the precursors of fruitful revolutions in science. The studies featured here offered models for the investigation of teacher effectiveness. The author of this article outlines the opinions of research workers on the possible revolution in teaching and describes approaches to research on teaching.

This article presents a research on music education in the U.S. Programs in music education supported by the U.S. Office of Education. Research and related activity was categorized according to six major subprograms: basic and applied research, demonstration, curricular improvement, small contract, research and development centers and curriculum improvemental activities. A significant contribution to the profession which used sound experimental techniques. This study provided evident of practical implication for teaching procedures at the elementary school level. Teaching procedures and the effect of knowledge of results by employing variations of rhythmic, melodic and intervalic material in transcribing music. Governmental and institutional agencies have shown increasing willingness to support research projects in music education.

This article reviews several researches concerning teachers and teaching in education. It includes significant ideas regarding the theory and experimental design, an encouraging upsurge in a few types of studies and occasional investigations which have set new and fruitful patterns for research. Summarily and clearly, a broader concept of research on staffing and teaching is needed. Only a strenuous, across-the-board effort holds promise for a major breakthrough on the instructional problems. The author hoped that these could contribute and stimulate better studies in the future.

This article presents a research study of art education. Research on the relationship of the student's art to other factors in his life has been conducted by both art educators and psychologists. A major portion of the recent research has focused on ways that teaching methods and materials affect student's art products and attitudes. Interest in creativity during the past decade has stimulated several studies of the effect of different teaching methods on creativity in art. Several research studies have focused on the effect on art behavior of the national culture of students or of a subculture, such as that found within a social-class level.

This article presents a study on the assessment of teacher behavior and instruction. Research on teacher behavior appears to have improved in quality in recent years. A trend, which is undoubtedly related to the improvement in the quality of research, has been an increase in attention given to methodological problems. The criterion problem is no longer neglected as much as it was few years ago; methods for observation and data collection have been refined and improved; and relatively sophisticated design and analysis techniques increasingly have been employed. A general trend has been a lessening of attention to the topic of teacher effectiveness, which often has been elusive in its ramifications because of the incomparability of evaluative criteria. There also has been a significant trend, not yet of great magnitude but certainly gaining momentum, toward concern with the theory of instruction and with models of teacher behavior that may provide organizing principles for research.

This article presents a study on the recruitment and selection of prospective elementary and secondary school teachers. The most important problem pertaining to recruitment is obtaining enough qualified teachers for the ever-increasing multitude of children in the nation's schools. In a questionnaire study revealed the factors underlying the decision to become a teacher. The following characteristics were found to be significantly related to the decision: desire to work with children or adolescents, liking for a particular subject, opportunity to leave the profession and to return to it later, increasing salary trend, scores on inventories of vocational interest, possibility of using teaching as a steppingstone to another career and membership in a group. In a questionnaire study of universities and colleges concerning the type and place in the students program of the use of selective devices, most institutions selected students at the beginning of the upper division and at entrance into student teaching.

This article examines the acquisition of learning from instructional television. Several comparisons are presented in terms of instructional television with classroom teaching in schools and colleges. It also explores student and teacher attitudes toward instructional television. The fact presented here is striking that about as much learning seems to take place in a television class as in an ordinary class. As the author suggests, there is every reason to expect less learning from television, because of the absence of give-and-take between teacher and student, of close attention to individual needs and differences, and of other qualities which are believed to characterize classroom teaching.

This article reviews research reports about textbooks and printed materials that have appeared during 1956. A necessary delimitation is the exclusion of studies dealing with school libraries. The subject areas covered include language arts, social studies, mathematics and science, and censorship. In addition to the message in printed communications, various textual variables are also important. These include studies of readability, typography, style, illustration, and design. This article also gives emphasis on programmed textbooks and on the importance of using correctly the text materials.

This article identifies the interest in the application of reinforcement psychology to meaningful school learning situations in the U.S. Much of the interest was generated by the development of the teaching machine and programmed learning approach. Maintaining and improving the desired response and eliminating the undesired response. Study of the error rates associated with different kinds of prompts in teaching eighth-grade students. The relevance of variables such as response mode and immediacy of confirmation.

This article deals with the observing and recording behavior as one of the research tools in educational research. The discussion offers a brief historical backdrop to current efforts at identifying, assessing, and quantifying teacher-learner interactions in the classroom; identifies some of the major studies that have developed methods and instruments for observing and recording classroom behaviors; and indicates the directions in which present trends in research seem to point.

This article discusses research on the aspects of instruction. Research on the organization of learning situation found that, of five kinds of grouping, friendship grouping gave best results on measures of achievement and social behavior. The relationship between teacher and learner is considered by many to be a critical factor and aspect in the learning situation. Research in guidance of learning experience witnessed many promising experiment with a variety of instructional procedure. Research concerning evaluation of learning is more limited than research related to other phases of instruction.

This article looks into the structure and dynamics of classroom and educational system. Though skills vary greatly among teachers, the ability to rank pupils on sociometric status is correlated significantly with ability to rank them on intelligence test scores. Evidence has shown that sociometric cleavage may be substantially modified by altering interaction patterns through periodic integrative, sociometric setting. Individuals maybe leaders in one phase of solving but not in others; and that leadership and number of communications initiated are positively related to subjects ranked higher for leadership but minimally related to lower ranking subjects. Cooperative versus competitive management upon small group behaviors has been demonstrated to minimize tension-related behaviors, to maximize satisfaction with the teaching technique and to improve academic performance.

This article describes the current state of theory in educational administration in the U.S. In attempting to assess the over-all results of three years of research in the aspects of educational administration covered by the article, the student is faced at the outset with the almost impossible task of evaluating the rigor of the research reported. Of the hundred or so articles which by a most generous stretch of the imagination can be considered reports of research, only an extremely small proportion give extract information concerning either conceptual or technical tools used. It is not the function of the article to discuss the adequacy of either the professional publications or the research training of students of educational administration. It is apparent, however, that at least a minor revolution in the basic assumptions of researchers in educational administration.

This article examines supply and demand of teachers in the U.S. Among the complex problems receiving attention was that of providing a sufficient number of qualified teachers to education vast numbers of children. One research brought into public consciousness the whole complex problem of teacher personnel shortages. Because quality of instruction is the main concern of administrators, they urged both the profession and interested laymen to take steps to effect a solution to the problem of teacher shortage and to improve teacher preparation through accreditation.

The article highlights the research in professional and graduate education in the U. S. There is a selection of a limited number of research studies that appear to be most significant. Several fields of education are covered herein, such as dentistry, engineering, law, librarianship, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, social work, and teaching. Since 1948, the U. S. Office of Education has reported the number of earned degrees conferred by institutions of higher education. Data were given on degrees by various subjects and professional fields.

This article discusses the research addressing the growth, development, learning and maturation as factors in curriculum and teaching. The basic idea that underlies all the others in modern education is to be found in John Dewey's recurrent emphasis on the experience if the child as of central concern. Regard for his all round development has shifted the emphasis from forcing him to acquire knowledge, to making provision for an inner living motivation. A man in general and the pupil in particular must be viewed not as a free soul, a capricious creature but as a dynamic lawful system interacting with the energy systems of the environment.

The article presents information on various studies related to the teaching efficiency in the United States. One of the studies shows that social attitudes reveal not only an insufficient awareness of social, economic and political issues, but also confusion and inadequate knowledge. Another study determines the value of different sorts of personal data in the prediction of teaching efficiency. A study finds that business education students are high in clerical and computational interests and elementary school teachers are low in literary interests.

This article explores several studies dealing with teaching load and assignment published during the years 1943 to 1945 in the U.S. The review reveals a decreasing number of investigations as compared with past years, particularly with respect to subject combinations. In one study, it was determined that in scheduling class size in high school the figure thirty was most generally sought and that forty was the common limit beyond which class size was not favored, except in certain subjects. Some influences of class size in the elementary school was analyzed in several studies. The number of periods of classroom teaching assigned in 1943-1944 as a normal load in cities of more than 100,000 population was usually twenty-five or thirty and was higher in schools having short periods.

This article discusses various aspects of school instruction in music. There is no general auditory factor which could describe correlational matrix. Eight factors have been identified which are associated with pitch quality discrimination, loudness discrimination, auditory span function, memory span and a number of Gestalt phenomena. It has been suggested that there are five life stages in musical development, each of which raises different problems for teachers: babyhood, preschool period, elementary school days, pre adolescent period and period of adolescence. Music can serve as a medium for the projection of psychological conflicts. Through music the child may obtain a much needed mental catharsis.

This article reviews the major contributions of art teaching to research in art education, psychology and aesthetics. There was a relation between ability to experience after images and age as well as with art achievement; there was no particular sex difference and only slight positive relationship with intelligence. Imitation is not rejected as a means of learning. Evaluation should be in terms of the purpose aimed at, keeping in view the technical limitations of the child. Significant common elements of art are: superior mentality emphasizing abstract, logical and constructive thinking, fear of mediocrity, strong drive for achievement; richness of inner interests and stimuli for spontaneous creative thought, strong sensitiveness and emotional responsiveness to the outer world.

This article focuses on foreign language teaching during wartime in the U.S. The period covered was one of great activity as well as one of transition. The tendency to change from pure reading aim to a conversational aim was marked, brought especially to the fore by the army specialized training program. What the final outcome will be cannot be predicted with certainty, but if indicated trends continue it is probable that the four-fold aim of hearing, speaking, reading, writing will regain the place it once occupied with great, but not exclusive, stress on the availability of languages for use in practical situations.

This article discusses important matters concerning the instruction of Mathematics in grades one to five. Several concerns were raised pertinent to Mathematics teaching in the elementary level. Among these are the need of suggestions for enrichment and for guides to teachers, the need for less emphasis upon abstract computation and for emphasis upon meaningful approaches, a reconsideration of the placement of topics grade by grade and lack of agreement with adopted textbook series.

This article discusses the place of laboratory experiment in educational research. The function of experimental education is to appraise methods of procedure used in the school or proposed for use, to analyze the mental processes which the learner carries on or the abilities which are essential in learning, and on the basis of this analysis to discover methods of procedure which are more efficient than those which previously have been employed. The place of experimental education in relation to the scheme of education includes: learning, the nature and capacities of the child, the curriculum, testing the results of learning and of teaching, and provision of the means of learning and instruction. To sum up, experimental education is a form of scientific investigation which is used chiefly to attack the problems of learning and of the analysis of abilities.