The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

Page 348 The Educational Screen COURROBIAS ^ MURAL MAPS (Series of Six) Important as visual education . . . stimulating as an insight into a vital world area! A scientifically accurate, artistically direct study of Pacific ethnol- ogy, economy, art, botany, native housing and transportation, in brilliant color. SCHWABACHER-FREY 735 MARKET STREET-SAN FRANCISCO Motion Pictures Go to War (Concluded from page 330) given invaluable assistance and most of the films were produced under the direction of the United States Army Signal Corps. A familiar answer to "Let's see a show," is. "I've already seen it." But at the Lexington Signal Depot and other army posts a given training film, properly used, may be shown several times to one group. Actu- ally, no one sees all of a given training film at one sitting. It might be considered elementary to point out that there is no such thing as a "motion" picture, but rather a series of individual projected frames be- tween which a beam of light cuts ofif the image; the illustion of motion is created. When detail seen in one picture is multiplied bv detail seen in thousands of pictures (frames), all more or less synchronized, it is little wonder that instruc- tors at LSD are careful to prepare their students for a film prior to projection and are careful to reshow it. The number of reshowings would depend upon the complexity of the subject matter. That theory is important is recognized by the army's insistence upon mathematics. The problem of build- ing a pontoon bridge might be worked out on paper. The second step could very profitably include a motion picture which shows how a pontoon bridge is con- structed. The real test, obviously, would be in the actual construction. The United States Army Signal Corps knows the limitations of the motion picture; it knows that the motion picture is only one of many aids in teaching. But in swift survival war the Army knows the value of the motion picture when it is prop- erly used, whether it be an entertainment film seen at one's favorite movie emporium, or an informational picture, such as Prelude to War. or a training film which deals with first aid. The Lexington Signal Depot is an excellent exam- ple of an army post which uses motion pictures prop- erly. The motion picture, as a medium, is a modern weapon and from its indelible images come the ideas, the skills, the attitudes, which mold human action and behavior. Motion pictures are, in the opinion of the Commanding Officer of the Lexington Signal De- pot, integral parts of the whole pattern which, in the end, will encompass the Axis. The actual prints of motion pictures may be worn out and tossed aside, but the ideas they have conveyed will remain. Experimental Research in Audio-Visual Education DAVID GOODMAN, Ph.D., Editor Title: An EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF CHILDREN'S UNDERSTANDING OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS. Investigator: Marie Goodwin- H.\lbf.rt —Completed for degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky, 1943. Purpose: To determine what ideas children get from certain elementary school readers, and from these ideas to determine— (1) the extent to whicli illustrations contribute to the com- prehension of reading matter, and (2)—the extent to which the stories and illustrations in the readers are adapted to the environmental backgrounds and the experience of the pupils for whom the readers were prepared. Introduction The study grew out of the need for an evaluation of in- structional materials prepared by tlie staff of the Bureau of .Sdiool Service, University of Kentucky, for use in an experi- ment in applied economics financed by a grant-in-aid from the .Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Sloan experiment seeks to change dietary practices of certain rural communities by directing emphasis in instruction toward problems of diet and related topics in certain experimental schools.' Toward this end, three series of readers and other instructional materials for early elementary grades liave been prepared, utilizing con- ditions and concepts known to the child in his own experience rather than abstract and remote terms and propositions. The present study attempts to evaluate the approach used in the Sloan experiment by measuring and analyzing the ideas which ■ children get from tlie instructional materials, particularly in relation to the problem of reading with illustrations and reading without illustrations. The study most closely related to the present investigation is that of Miller,2 who tried to find out whether children who read a basal set of primary readers with the accompanying illus- trations secure greater comprehension of the material than do pupils who read tlie same material without the illustrations. Miller found that the absence of pictures did not cause the cliildren to read the material witli less comprehension. Procedure A representative story, witli its accompanying illustrations, was selected from one reader in each series. Each of three groups of rural school children, equated on the basis of read- ing ages, was divided into three subgroups corresponding to the three levels of reading ability covered by the readers. The ages for each of the three reading levels were as follows; Level A—Reading Ages of 96 montlis or below B—Reading Ages of 97 months to 111, inclusive C—Reading ages of 112 months or over The children of each of the three reading levels, A, B, C, in Group I were tested for the ideas which they got from reading the selected story for that level when it was presented with its illustrations. The children of each of the three reading levels, A, B, C, in Group II were tested for the ideas which they got from the selected story for that level when it was presented alone (illustrations covered.) The children of each of the three reading levels in Group III were tested for the ideas which they got from the illustrations selected from that level when they were presented without the story (story covered.) Since the children were to be tested for the ideas which they got from the stories, the separate ideas in each story were listed. The artists listed the ideas that they were trying to convey in the pictures. These lists were used as scoring keys in tabulating results. If an idea agreed with the ideas listed it was scored as a relevant idea. Ideas which did not agree with {Concluded on page 363) 1. Maurice F. Seay & Harold F. Clark, "The School Curriculum and Economic Improvement"—Bulletin of the Bureau of School Service, U. of Ky., Vol. XIII, No. 1, September 1940, p. 13. 2. Wm. A. Miller, "Read'ng With and Without Pictures," Elementary School Journal, 38:676-82, May 1938.