The Lecture Method versus the Question-and-Answer Method

The purpose of this investigation was to determine through experimentation the relative value of the lecture and the questionand-answer methods of class instruction in the teaching of the social sciences. In order to secure concrete data on this problem it was decided to prepare a series of lessons on some topics with which the pupils were not familiar, teach this material by the two methods under consideration, and then test the results. The subject-matter selected for these lessons was the government of England and the government of Switzerland. These governments were chosen for two reasons: first, pupils in the junior and senior high school as a rule have never made a systematic study of either of these governments and, second, these governments are so different in form and organization that very little that was learned as a result of a study of one government would carry over into the study of the other government. Each class tested was divided according to the rank method. While no attempt is made to justify this method of dividing a class, the experiment was conducted in such a manner that any variable which occurred as a result of this method of division was taken care