Showing papers in "Review of Educational Research in 1969"

9: Education’s Challenge to Psychology: The Prediction of Behavior From Person-Environment Interactions

Abstract: trends in research methodology for the special RER issue entitled "TwentyFive Years of Educational Research," Walker (1956, p. 326) described how successive issues on research methodology tended to place more and more emphasis on the ". . . variety, complexity, and importance of statistical methods for analyzing data gathered by various technics." It is interesting to conjecture about how the present issue on research methodology will be evaluated some years hence against the background of these past trends and the undoubtedly accelerated trends of the future. This issue departs appreciably from the usual format and requires the author to examine how research pertinent to education is being conducted in his substantive field and to provide a critical analysis and evaluation of a few selected areas of current research endeavor from the point of view of relevance, generalizability, potential, and limitations. The task is one that stimulates a desire to take stock of current conditions and needs in the field and to speculate about desirable directions for the future. The contemporary social and political context certainly encourages such stock-taking. The challenge that speaks (and sometimes shrieks) of "relevance" can be rejected, ignored, controverted, rationalized, or redefined in less objectionable terms, but it still exists and must be contended with in one way or another. And any socially conscious research worker is certain to have periods of heightened concern and remorse when he considers the enormity of those contemporary social issues in relation to the utility of the armamentarium that psychology can bring to bear upon them. What we need to know about the specific determinants of cognitive deficit in the disadvantaged is staggering, and the educational methods of greatest benefit to its amelioration are still a matter of conjecture and opinion. The turmoil on America's campuses is now being explained ex post facto and with vigor by the armchair theorists, but such activity does not hide the psychologists' very evident inability to predict the psychosocial determinants of these events and their ultimate outcomes.

4: Counselor Education

Abstract: This chapter represents a broadened undertaking for the Review of Educational Research, reflecting the recent emergence of counselor education into a more professional status. As with any developing profession some areas of counselor education have progressed faster than others. For example, such vital areas as the evaluation of counselor education programs, the problems of professional ethics, and the counseling of children with special problems such as the ghetto child have received very little attention. In contrast, such areas as standards, the content of counselor education programs, the use of sub-professional support personnel, and the problems of counselor selection and role have received considerable attention.

1: History of Curriculum Thought and Practice

Abstract: Curriculum innovators of the past decade have attempted to solve the difficult problems of curriculum planning and development with scant attention to the historical dimensions of these problems. The Committee on the Role of Education in American History (1965) contended that "imperfect knowledge" of educational history had "affected adversely the planning of curricula ... in the continuing crisis of American education." Goodlad (1966, p. 91), in his critique of the contemporary curriculum reform movement, deplored the fact that "A substantial number of the new crop of reformers have approached the persistent, recurring problems of curriculum construction in the naive belief that no one had looked at them before."

5: Methodological Issues In Curriculum Research

Abstract: The preceding chapters reveal scant attention to methodological issues by curriculum researchers. The modal method of spirited typing does not readily generate issues of a methodological nature. Curriculum reformers and builders have tended to be amethodological as well as ahistorical. Since methodological issues in curriculum research have not overtly appeared in the literature, this review will be structured in terms of latent issues of methodology currently available to the curriculum researcher.

10: Relevance and Research in Counseling

Abstract: In his book Psychotherapy East and West, Alan Watts (1961) described Samsara, the Eastern concept of life lived in a vicious cycle of endlessly repetitive attempts to solve false and unreal problems. Much of what happens in counseling \"research\" qualifies as Samsara. Most published research is quite simply a waste—a waste of valuable time and resources. The simple fact is that most studies, as they are conceptualized, designed, executed and analyzed, make no difference to counseling theory and practice. Published research, of course, makes other differences to investigators (e.g., personal recognition and attention), but it seldom qualifies as \"disciplined inquiry\" (Cronbach and Suppes, in press). As they are typically done, research studies represent a routinized, \"convenience-oriented\" operation (Borgatta, 1960). Calling such work research, even if it is published, does not qualify it as significant and worthy.

3: Curriculum Materials

Abstract: Attention given to research on curriculum material might be justified as a logical outgrowth of the two chapters on learning materials in the June 1966 issue of the Review devoted to the topic of curriculum. However, there is a reason more compelling than historical precedent to scrutinize research on curriculum materials. An examination of the curriculum reform movement in this country during the 1960's reveals that, without exception, those curriculum projects which had the most significant effects upon educational practice produced curriculum materials to implement their new curriculum scheme. To state it bluntly, it takes more than admonitions from curriculum seers, even if they are accompanied by polished curriculum guides, to alter the procedures of busy educational practitioners. The educational reformer who eloquently urges classroom teachers to change their practices may receive the accolades of the educational community, but the educational reformer who provides a set of usable curriculum materials for the teacher is more likely to modify what goes on in the classroom. This statement is not meant to suggest that curriculum materials are the only vehicles for bringing about educational change, since there are other factors involved. However, the enormous impact of curricular materials as change agents should not be underestimated, and a consideration of research relevant to curriculum materials is clearly in order. The broadest interpretation of the phrase \"curriculum materials\" includes such educational devices as textbooks, audio visual equipment, and bulletin board displays. However, because rigorous research regarding curricular materials will normally be focused on those materials as some form of treatment variable, it seems appropriate to consider only those curriculum materials which are essentially replicable, i.e., materials which permit repeated investigations of their attributes and effects. Unless one

2: Forces Influencing Curriculum

Abstract: Changes are occurring both in theories for constructing curriculum and in what is actually taught in the schools. Knowledge of the powerful forces influencing these changes is limited. An indication of the diverse approaches used deriving such knowledge and the results attained from these efforts will be found in this chapter. Most of the studies cited are valuable for their curricular implications and because the findings reported are of general interest.

6: Philosophical and Historical Bases of Science Teaching

Abstract: Previous research reviews in science teaching have not considered philosophical and historical studies. Behavioral studies, curriculum studies, and studies of teaching methods have been most prominent in the literature; but, as Hurd and Rowe (1964) pointed out, such researches have lacked well-developed philosophic starting points and have tended to be contradictory, fragmented, and unpatterned. These teaching and learning studies have appropriated \"methods\" of science, scientific \"principles,\" science \"concepts,\" etc. as unexamined starting points. However, philosophic studies—studies of methods and principles of science in and of themselves and studies of curriculum design and teaching methods that are consistent with particular methods and principles of science—have been largely neglected. Several forces have contributed to the science educator's emerging attention to philosophic studies. Scientific knowledge is growing at a rate that makes it impossible for text materials to be completely up-to-date. Growth of knowledge is not only by accretion; rather, it is characterized more appropriately as conceptual reorganization—inert gases are no longer inert, cells are no longer bags of enzymes. A second force relates to science and society. Conceptions of Darwinian evolution, relativity theory, and various other major ideas from the sciences have been and continue to be powerful influences in shaping culture. The tragedy of Oppenheimer and the moral and ethical issues of organ transplant, attest to the inseparability of social problems and scientific knowledge. In the late 1950's science curricula were criticized for being out-of-date and failing to consider science in all of its dimensions. These forces gave impetus to philosophical studies in science education.

4: Curriculum Evaluation:

Abstract: Curriculum is frequently defined by educational theorists as the link between society and the schools, the major source of stimuli found in instructional settings, or as pupil behavior pertinent to the goals of the school. According to these definitions curriculum could include everything that happens to a child in school from learning how to accept last Friday's football game loss to the complete sequence of experiences that produced his 800 SAT score. Abramson (1966, p. 388) described the use of broad, general definitions in a Review issue on curriculum development and planning: \"Clarification of the specific role of curriculum research and evaluation is a continuing problem in the field because of lack of agreement as to the distinctions to be made among curriculum, instructional organization, teaching, and learning.\

7: Current Research in Mathematics Education

Abstract: Current research in mathematics education can be characterized as large in quantity, poor but improving in quality, and diverse. During the past five years over a thousand studies of mathematics instruction have been reported. The poor quality of most studies can be attributed to too much interest in mathematical components and too little concern for experimental design, measurement, or analysis. The diversity of this immense number of studies was a major problem in preparing this review. The school level categorization of past Review issues was not followed. The intent of the present organization is to highlight certain problem areas that cut across school levels. (For school level reviews see Glennon and Callahan, 1968, and Willoughby, 1969.) For this issue research reports have been categorized into the following eight areas: 1) mathematical learning from an association learning framework; 2) mathematical learning from an activity learning framework; 3) mathematical problem solving and creative behavior; 4) mathematics teaching; 5) the effectiveness of instructional programs; 6) the association of learner characteristics with mathematical achievement; 7) attitudes toward mathematics; and 8) the evaluation and measurement of mathematics achievement. These eight areas reflect the stimulation of mathematics education by the new courses developed in the early 1960's and the growing interest and involvement of mathematics educators and psychologists in systematic studies of the learning and teaching of mathematics. At the beginning of this decade, the United States was swept with enthusiasm for improving scientific and mathematical training programs. Now as the decade draws to a close, salesmanship has given way to questioning and, in some cases, to careful inquiry. This does not imply that the objectives of the reform movement were failures; there is no question that the content of mathematics courses needed to be updated. However, the educational process is complicated. Changes in content alone were not sufficient to produce drastic changes in mathematical learning. There is considerable agreement about what should be taught, but not about how it should be taught

1: Learning Studies in Science Education:

Abstract: s, and Dissertation Abstracts, shows that there is a relatively standard set of categories ("concept learning," "problem solving," "discovery learning," "critical thinking," etc.) for classifying learning studies. Each category might be thought to represent a closely bound set of ideas, but further problems emerge as one begins to read the studies. Take as an example the category "discovery learning." In a hypothetical study conducted by Mr. X and clearly labeled a discovery study in the title, second and third grade pupils were taught a series of "discovery lessons on flowers." The pupils used programed directions written in the Initial Teaching Alphabet. The "Mr. X Test of Discovery Learning" was given as a preand posttest. The reader knows little about the test other than that it consists of twenty items constructed by Mr. X. After analysis of pre-post data, Mr. X reports that discovery learning was far superior to conventially taught lessons. In another hypothetical study, by Mr. Y, college freshmen in an introductory geology class were engaged in a series of "discovery lessons" employing geological maps on field trips. An achievement test constructed by Mr. Y was given to classes using the discovery lessons and to a control class using only the text and lectures. Analysis of data revealed significant differences in achievement in favor of the experimental discovery class.

10: Problem Solving in Mathematics

Abstract: The preeminence of increased problem-solving ability as a goal of mathematics instruction has long been admitted; but like the weather, problem solving has been more talked about than predicted, controlled, or understood. The studies reviewed in this chapter were chosen from a large number published during the last five years that are relevant to the twin issues of how problem solving is learned and how it can be taught. The role of problems in developing students' mathematical activity was chosen by the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction as one of three topics for discussion at the 1966 International Congress of Mathematicians in Moscow. Reports to the Commission by the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (1966) in the United States and by the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (1966) in England highlighted the importance of problems in mathematics instruction and indicated that educators need to know much more about using problems to stimulate independent and creative thinking.

Chapter VI: Behavior Disorders

Abstract: Numerous publications have appeared recently on the subject of emotionally and socially maladjusted children. The majority of the articles, however, have been descriptions of projects, clinical case studies, or suggested methodologies without supporting data. For reasons of both space and scientific relevance, this review is limited mainly to research papers and articles from more readily available sources. As a result, theoretical approaches which lend themselves to programmatic research may be overrepresented. In this report, learning theory, as noted by Balow (1966), continues to be a dominant force in the field. The few exceptions to the above limitations are primarily early reports of long-term studies which appeared to have major significance for the field. Public school programs and teacher training facilities for emotionally and socially maladjusted children have flourished. Scheuer's (1966) survey of the United States and its affiliations showed that since 1962 there had been a three-fold increase in the number of states and U.S.-associated territories reporting special teacher training programs for disturbed children. A number of compilations of readings have appeared in recent years to accompany the growth of the field. Hellmuth's (1966) book consists of 19 papers covering a diverse range of topics, programs, and problems. Considerable emphasis is given to psychoeducational programs, perceptual development, and educational intervention technique. Long, Morse, and Newman's (1965) compilation contains a unique introductory section which deals with the experience of emotional disturbance as described by fiction writers. This is followed by an attempted consolidation of many classic articles of both a theoretical and a practical nature. Both books, particularly Hellmuth's, would have benefited by a careful analysis and discussion of the theoretical postures underlying the different articles. Kessler (1966) united her own clinical experience with a broad review of the research and theoretical literature to produce a book which could serve as an excellent text or reference for those students in the field of childhood disturbances who prefer a psychoanalytic orientation. It is unfortunate that her last chapter which pertains to primary and secondary prevention did not lead to a reformulation of her earlier chapters. Her book would have had greater relevance to teachers of disturbed children if she

8: Conditions of Learning in Mathematics: Sequence Theory Development

Abstract: The structure of an object is defined by specifying its elements and their interrelationships. An analysis of structure provides no information about the relations of the object under consideration to other objects. Any description of structure is relative to certain elements (units) which are treated as devoid of structure on the particular occasion of description; on a different occasion and in a different context, the structure of those basic elements or units may be taken into account (Russell, 1962).

9: Activity Learning

Abstract: This review of activity learning in mathematics covers publications from January 1964 through December 1968. In the context of this article activity learning is taken to mean school learning settings in which the learner develops mathematical concepts through active participation. This process may involve the manipulation of physical materials, the use of games, or partaking in experiments with physical objects. Theory and research on the effects of this type of activity will be discussed in this article under manipulative learning.

2: Curriculum Development and Instructional Materials

Abstract: Limitations of time and space have made it almost impossible to produce an accurate, impartial and comprehensive review of research on the curriculum development and instructional materials in science education which have been produced and disseminated at an immensely increasing rate since the last review. Hence this chapter is highly selective; important studies and some large areas of potential interest have been omitted. The ERIC Center for Science Education (1968a, 1968b) provided a number of invaluable bibliographies. Lockard (1968) compiled a series of annual reports which are extensive compendia of information on both national and international science and mathematics curricular developments. O'Hearn (1967) wrote a useful introduction to the major curriculum developments in science.

11: Classroom Teaching of Mathematics

Abstract: What is a good mathematics teacher? What are his personal characteristics? What sort of preservice and inservice education is most appropriate for him? What teaching method is most effective in mathematics classes? Few questions in mathematics education are more important than these, and few generate more vigorous debate or consistent disagreement. Despite long and active interest in the problems, research offers few important guidelines in the search for personal attributes, classroom styles, or educational preparation of successful teachers. Extensive investigation has failed to show significant or consistent correlation between fundamental characteristics of teachers—such as experience, knowledge of mathematics, collegiate preparation, or attitudes toward mathematics—and the achievement or attitudes of their students. Evidence from comparisons of two or more teaching methods supports no one method as superior in mathematics teaching. Much current research in mathematics teaching continues the traditional search for the elusive \"good teacher.\" However, there is growing evidence of creative, yet careful, new research strategies and techniques. This chapter covers research in mathematics teaching reported from 1964 through 1968. Significant results and promising direction for study are indicated; this chapter is not a catalog of research. Following a discussion of the quality of current research, the review is divided into two major areas: 1) personal characteristics of teachers and 2) teacher classroom behavior, including methods of teaching. The quality and originality of recent research into characteristics and behavior of effective teachers were not evident in studies of preservice and inservice teacher education. Because of this weakness and space limitations, research in teacher education has not been included in this issue of the Review.

5: Changes Through Counseling

Abstract: Research resulting in definitive knowledge of counseling outcomes is still wanting. Unfortunately, great separations among theoretical rationales, research, outcome criteria and practices remain. Laboratorytype research does not always find workable procedures for practitioners. Field research, conversely, often leaves the reader ignorant of both theoretical assumptions and specific results. It is almost impossible to determine whether the non-specific results support or challenge the loosely defined and executed procedures of the typical field study. The failure to describe the nature of the treatment adequately makes many studies of little practical value. Too often the independent variable is labeled \"counseling\" and the dependent variable (the objective of counseling) is some personality test score. This situation is not unlike the medical patient who receives \"doctoring\" for severe abdominal pains, but whose cure is measured by a test on attitudes toward medicine. The knowledge that the patient was given \"doctoring\" and has perhaps changed his attitude toward medicine does little to help other physicians assist patients with similar problems. A few major studies (e.g., Rothney, 1958; Volsky et al., 1965) have attempted to evaluate total counseling services. Although well-designed,

2: History of Education

Abstract: Most historians, including those concerned with education, have been reluctant to give careful attention to their methods. They have been especially hesitant to philosophize about their work. That is, historians have not been anxious to seek the assumptions underlying their research, to explore the implications of these assumptions, and to think through their bases for making statements of fact, values, and social utility. When they do talk about methods, they tend to discuss techniques for locating and verifying data and, to a lesser extent, drawing conclusions from these data. Discussions of that nature are, in the parlance of the profession, conversations about historiography.

1: Theoretical Foundations of Guidance

Abstract: In the previous triennial review on this topic, Kehas (1966) identified two divergent views of the relationship between guidance and theory. One is an "atheoretical orientation, crediting guidance with no independent substance and, hence, no need for its own theory." The other is a "substantive orientation," which posits that guidance is not merely a "derivative of more basic disciplines," but warrants distinctive theories of its own. Kehas characterized the work emanating from the latter orientation as mainly, "discussions of theory" with some presentations of theoretical constructs, but no "full-blown theoretical systems of guidance." Theory has matured during the last three years, but is not yet full blown.

4: Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Education

Abstract: present and who occupy various statuses in the social system. When a group is experiencing rapid socio-cultural change (modernization, urbanization, revolution, etc.), anthropologists attempt to sample the spectrum of personal exposure to and participation in the change. When gathering and analyzing data anthropologists pay constant attention to the interdependence of phenomena; they tend to think in terms of cultural patterns or configurations. They attempt to see how each discrete fact relates to the total matrix of other facts collected on the

3: Aesthetic Inquiry:

Abstract: Whether experimental and psychological or analytic and philosophical, aesthetic inquiry is concerned with isolating a field of relevant data, interpreting it, and when most ambitious, with formulating hypotheses to explain the law-like reoccurrences that may appear in the phenomena under investigation. It is our purpose in this chapter to examine the methodological assumptions and the practical results of applying specific research techniques to \"aesthetic\" phenomena in order to determine the workability of educational procedures that depend upon various methods of aesthetic research. We examine the claims of psychologists, linguistic philosophers, and phenomenologists that they have the methods appropriate to develop a workable tool for teaching aesthetic materials.

3: Teacher Education in Science

Abstract: In an earlier issue of the Review, Burnett (1964) commented on the scarcity of research findings leading toward sound modifications of practice in science teacher education. He gave illustrations of the abundance of "normative studies, particularly those designed to determine college scientific and pedagogic credits earned by science teachers. .. ." To an unfortunate degree this condition still obtains. Furthermore, it appears that a far greater proportion of the literature devoted to science teacher education is concerned with descriptive reporting and what might be termed "reasoned editorializing" than with research findings that might lead to sound modifications of practice. There are some straws in the wind that indicate an increased movement toward restructuring science teacher education on the basis of valid research evidence, and this is encouraging. More attention is being paid to teacher personality, the effects of teachers' classroom behaviors, and the implications of these effects for science teacher education. Efforts are being made to identify the competencies desirable in a beginning science teacher. There is a growing emphasis on determining more realistic approaches to in-service education and the effects of various components of preparation programs on the eventual classroom performance of science teachers.

2: School Guidance Programs

Abstract: In this chapter selected articles and publications clearly related to research are discussed and commentary is provided on recent developments in guidance research at the elementary and secondary school levels. In preparing the chapter a variety of sources in addition to the major periodical publications were searched for the period from July 1965 to July 1968. Research evaluating school guidance programs and the role of research as an integral part of such programs are emphasized in this chapter. Since the topic of almost every chapter in this issue is a part, in some way, of school guidance programs, it becomes increasingly difficult and perhaps irrelevant to continue to consider guidance programs separately.

6: Curriculum: State of the Field

Abstract: In this chapter I seek to do three things: 1) analyze chapters 1-5 of this issue of the Review with a view to determining recent trends in curriculum research and development; 2) identify, partly from this analysis, continuing problems and issues in the curriculum field; and 3) appraise curriculum as a field of inquiry, giving some attention to future directions. In the concluding paragraphs of this chapter, I use the June 1960 issue of the Review as a touchstone in commenting on the past decade. The three purposes specified above are dealt with synthetically, not serially, and more or less in essay form. Assuming that preceding chapters are reasonably comprehensive, one must conclude that increased concern for methodology characterizes current curriculum inquiry. It is significant that an entire chapter (Schutz) is devoted to methodological problems and issues. In two other chapters, Popham and Baker are much preoccupied with methodological problems in curriculum research, and McNeil concludes his chapter with recognition of a new emphasis on experimental work within the field. In this regard, it is gratifying to note that Baker, Popham and Schutz are highly critical of those comparative studies, which are all too common in educational circles, that purport to measure the effects of supposedly differentiated educational treatments when such treatments either are not described or are fictitious. The results of a clutch of such studies often are used, quite misleadingly, to commend or discourage particular educational practices. Unfortunately, since this and most reviews of educational research tend to emphasize findings, it is impossible to know when to attach significance to what is reported. The addition of a methodological chapter in a review of curriculum developments is a welcome innovation. But curriculum inquiry-nay, educational inquiry-would profit immeasurably from truly critical reviews of both process and product in research. Such reviews might well include only a fraction of the publications cited here, but would examine them in depth. Allow me to add one highly subjective comment regarding methodology. Curriculum researchers appear to be hung up on a limited repertoire of