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May, 1923
Is Visual Education a Fad?
211
Important Questions Answered Two questions arise now in the mind of the reader : ( 1 ) Would the group which did not see the fihii do as well in the examination as the other two? (2) Of the other two groups, which one would do better, the one which saw the film first or the one which viewed it after the lecture? The opposite diagram answers both question.s.
By way of explanation, the 31.75 represents quantitatively the knowledge which the children brought to the experiment. That is, each pupil had on the average nearly 32 units of knowledge about India when the experiment began. How this was determined is another story which will not be explained here because lack of space forbids.
Summary
Summarizing, then, all five hundred children under the Lesson-Review Method increased their knowledge of India to 45.48 units. Under the Lesson-Film Method they raised it to 4^.86. And under the FilmLesson Method the average went as high as 52. 6p. The net increase was 13.73, 18. 11 and 20.p4 respectively. Taking the first as the base, we get 100%, 132%, and 153%, which means gains of 32% and 53% in favor of using a film in connection with oral teaching.
Our diagram suggests the following inferences :
1. When a correlated film is used as an aid in a seventh-grade class, it will increase the effectiveness of the lesson decidedly. Any teacher who teaches without the aid of moving pictures today is simply ''traveling by horse and buggy."
2. This increase in efifectiveness is the result of (a) greater ease of comprehension and (b) a higher degree of satisfaction
as a consequence. The presentation is more realistic, and therefore the children understand it quicker and enjoy it more.
3. Since moving pictures provide substitute, or vicarious, experience, they should precede the lesson when the subject-matter is relatively foreign to the learner. This should not be taken too literally, however. What is really meant here is that the pictures should come early in the presentation to provide the children with a fund of imagery. That will enable them to interpret the speaker's statements in terms of their recently acquired experience. In short, they will know what he is talking about.
Caution
The differences in favor of the film as a visual aid, as shown by this experiment, are probably too high for generalization. The subject-matter of the lessons was essentially foreign, far removed from the experiences of the pupils, and thus hard to understand and still harder to follow. Had the film been used to aid in the presentation of subject-matter more familiar to the pupils, the efifectiveness would very likely have been much less. Then the lessons were long and tiresome and poorly organized, which made them proportionately less attractive than the film. Finally, the teacher was handicapped with many experimental restrictions which prevented her from being normally, effective. Under ordinary classroom conditions the efifectiveness of a correlated film would probably be closer to half of what the foregoing results indicate. Subsequent experiments by the author seem to substantiate this assertion.
But if the use of educational films should increase our teaching efficiency a mere fizw per cent, are we justified in going on the old zvayf Food for thought, educators!