Methods and Errors of Pupils

METHODS AND ERRORS OF PUPILS The laboratory analysis of methods exhibited in learn ing constitute the most productive application of experimental methods. A common method to study reading is to photograph the movements of a reader's eyes as he looks along a line of printed matter. The movements of the eye are much better indicators of what is going on in the reader's nervous system when he tries to recognize and interpret printed words than are the movements of articulation which the reader makes in pro pouncing words orally. Oral pronunciation is a remote process following the recognition of words after so long an interval that other factors such as the physiological limitations of vocal action obscure the true reading process. Eye movements, on the other hand, are very closely related to the reader's efforts to compre hend passages. Photographic records of the eye movements show among other facts that there is a marked difference between the individual's mental processes when he is reading silently and when he is reading orally. Silent reading makes possible atten tion to large units. Whole phrases are apprehended at a single glance. In oral reading, on the other hand, attention is relatively fragmentary, controlled by the necessity of separate pronunci ation of each sound. The discovery of this fact has had a pro found effect on school practice. It was formerly the universal practice of schools to limit instruction in reading to oral reading. The newer reading books and reading courses of the elementary schools are organized with a view to encouraging pupils at an early age to read silently.

Similar methods of investigation have been employed in inves tigating the habits of pupils in dealing with foreign languages. It has been found that high-school pupils in the United States rarely reach the stage in the study of Latin where they read the sentences. They are evidently preparing, each time they look at a Latin word, to fix it in mind, not as part of a sentence but as a separate item to be carried in the mind long enough to be related to the vocabulary at the back of the book. The investi gations of the results of instruction in French show that in this case pupils approach more nearly to the type of reading which they exhibit in dealing with the vernacular.

Experimental analyses of the habits of pupils in handwriting show that when pupils first begin to write, their movements are without rhythm and their co-ordinations are undeveloped. Their muscles are tense and diffusion of nervous impulses throughout the whole body results in contractions of muscles which are in no wise involved in the writing of a mature individual. It has been possible to arrange a series of training exercises which de velop in pupils proper habits of fluent movement much more economically than was possible under old systems of training.

Analyses of the learning processes in all branches of mathe matics are very difficult because there are very few external manifestations of behaviour accompanying the mental steps in volved in solving a mathematical problem. In spite of the diffi culties, some progress has been made in this field. Especially has it been possible to deal with the simplest phases of number expe rience. The rate of counting has been measured under different conditions. It has been found, for example, that counting a series of sounds is more fluent and accurate than is the counting of a series of flashes of light. Counting a series of tactile experiences is very uncertain. These and similar facts show the complete dependence of number experiences on training. The reason why sounds are easier to count than are other forms of sensory experi ence is that sounds are far more often associated in a child's experience with number names than are the other forms of sen sation. The more elaborate processes of arithmetical manipu lation have been analyzed by securing from learners descriptions of their methods of solving problems. Adequate laboratory experi ments have not been devised for the analysis of the processes of reasoning such as those which appear when a verbal problem is attacked. Passing from arithmetic to the higher branches of mathematics, it is possible to give a fairly complete account of the way in which pupils acquire notions of space and to discover the mental processes which are involved in the study of geometry. Here again the higher processes of reasoning are too complex to he readily investigated.

Classification of Errors.

A productive method of study which has been employed in all fields is that of recording and classifying the errors which pupils make. A mistake made by a pupil is revealing because it supplies a contrast through which investigators can gain much information about normal processes, and also because it throws light on the effectiveness or ineffec tiveness of school methods. A number of contributions to educa tional literature have concerned themselves with cataloguing the typical mistakes made by pupils in different subjects and with the discovery through trial of so-called remedial measures by means of which errors may be corrected or avoided. A wide variety of causes of mistakes have been discovered. Defective vision or hearing may cause mistakes. Emotional disturbances are fruitful causes of distraction. Distractions of many different kinds inter fere with the progress of the learning process. When the causes of mistakes can be definitely located, it is possible to adjust in struction to the needs of pupils much more specifically than when all mistakes are classified as belonging together in a vague, general way and when teachers think of them as purely negative facts.

New methods of teaching

that have been developed through these tests and analyses have been extensively employed since about 190o. Confidence in conventional school practices has been so weakened that the demand has been emphasized for new forms of teaching. These demands for new adjustments of school prac tices have been powerfully reinforced by the fact that modern civilization has created a series of new intellectual demands. While formerly there were only three learned professions, to-day in dustry has its engineers and commerce has its professional experts. In short, the modern world is calling for higher types of training in fields which formerly were not thought of as especially affected by school training. It has followed naturally that the system of education has found itself confronted with the necessity of ex tensive reconstruction of the school curriculum. Since about 1918 the interest of teachers and school administrators has been largely centred on curriculum problems. A number of the leading school systems and practically all the educational associations of the country have organized committees on curriculum revision. Vari ous techniques have been employed in the studies of the curricu lum. One of these consists in a tabulation of all of the forms of knowledge used in common life; another, in the analysis of the mature sciences in order to discover the fundamental lines of thought to which one should be introduced if he is to be intelligent about modern issues. Thus, it is asked, what are the economists and sociologists discussing in their mature sciences? Having found the answer to this question, one may, it is held, undertake to re write the text-books used in the schools. A third technique con sists in a so-called "job analysis" of various trades and practical activities of life. The phrase "job analysis" has been extended to cover such general matters as the activities of women who have charge of homes and the professional activities of doctors and lawyers as well as the manual skills of tradesmen and mechanics. A job analysis having been made, the second step in curriculum construction is to discover the methods of intellectual adaptation which are necessary to the successful mastery of the demands of the job.

It is significant that curriculum reconstruction is engaging the attention not only of the directors of the lower schools but of the institutions of higher learning and of the professional schools. National commissions are engaged in making elaborate studies of the curriculums of engineering schools and schools of medicine.

The types of scientific work which have been described have at times been combined in what are known as school surveys. A survey is an examination, by means of the most exact methods available, of the conditions which obtain in any given school system. In many cases the survey originates in dissatisfaction with existing local conditions. The citizens of a community, for example, are doubtful whether the efficiency of their schools has improved at a pace commensurate with the mounting costs ; they accordingly invite an expert or a group of experts to test their system of education. Surveys of schools have been common since about 1912. There is a great volume of published material re porting surveys of State systems of education and of smaller units of school organization down to the single school.

Agencies.

In its beginnings the science of education was hardly more than a series of practical applications of psychology or at most a special branch of that science. A few psychologists devoted themselves to the cultivation of the new science. School administrators and classroom teachers were at first very little con cerned with it. They were absorbed in the routine duties of con ducting school. The first great impetus to the new science was given by Clark university and Teachers' college of Columbia university. The first was organized in 1887 and the second was reconstructed and made effective at a somewhat later period. These two institutions graduated groups of students who have since been leaders in the development of the science of education. Not only so, but they set an example which has been extensively imitated until there are very few institutions of higher learning which do not have at least one representative of this science on the faculty, and in many instances instruction and research in education are organized in a separate school or college.

While the higher institutions are thus providing centres for re search and instruction, school systems are beginning to feel the influence of the developing science. Gradually the organization of the leading school systems of the country have been enlarged so as to include what is known as a division of tests and research or a bureau of efficiency. A recent report indicated that (1927) there are 200 or more such scientific agencies within public school systems. In many cases the heads of these scientific divisions of the school system rank as assistant superintendents.

A highly effective agency for the support of scientific work in education is the Bureau of Research of the National Education Association. The example of the National Teachers Association in conducting scientific studies has been imitated by a number of State educational associations. The teaching profession has thus taken an active part in the development of educational science. Another central agency for the collection and interpretation of scientific information is the U.S. bureau of education of the Department of the Interior. This bureau has long been occupied in the collection of statistics regarding the schools of the country. Congress has enlarged its resources and it is now the leading public agency for the conduct of surveys and one of the most important centres for the collection of information and for the conduct of scientific studies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-L. P. Ayres, Child Accounting in the Public Schools Bibliography.-L. P. Ayres, Child Accounting in the Public Schools (1916) ; C. H. Judd, Measuring the Work of the Public Schools (1916) ; F. N. Freeman, Mental Tests (1926) ; J. A. O'Brien, Reading. Its Psychology and Pedagogy (1926) ; P. M. Symonds, Measurement in Secondary Education (1927) ; W. F. Dearborn, Intelligence Tests (1928) ; G. T. Buswell and C. H. Judd, Summary of Educational Investigations Relating to Arithmetic (Supplementary Educational Monograph, No. 27) (1925) ; W. S. Gray, Summary of Investigations Relating to Reading (Supplementary Educational Monograph, No. 28) (1925). (C. H. J.)