General Methods of Teaching
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Abstract
THE SMALL AMOUNT of research here reported appears to indicate a change in the kind of research being conducted. There is an apparent trend away from studies of "general" methods. For the most part research in the field of methods is closely identified with specific subjectmatter and is reported in the numbers of the Review devoted to "Psychology and Methods in the High School and College" and "Special Methods and Psychology of the Elementary-School Subjects." There is also a tendency among contributors to write an informal narrative or journalistic exposition of a personal experience in teaching rather than present a straightforward account of scientific technic. Perhaps the highly formal measurement movement and statistical analysis have moved from the center of the stage, allowing the teacher and the pupils to appear again in the spotlight. It may be that when research on methods so often proved only what experience had already taught, teachers took heart and began to report in periodicals narrative or expository accounts of their "experiences." In any case, the professional literature of the past three years indicates that elementaryand secondary-school teachers and professors of education are still discussing methods of teaching. Such topics as remedial, diagnostic, or test-determined teaching, lecture, recitation, learning by wholes versus learning by parts, memorizing by reading versus recitation, inductive versus deductive learning, drill, appreciation, laboratory, project, problem, socialized recitation, unit plan, contract plan, case method, committee, conference plan, discussion, panel discussion, review, supervised, directed, or guided study, group plan, visual aids, auditory aids, scientific aids to teaching, photoplay, radio, constructive activities, activity program, and integration have appeared and reappeared in the periodicals, but usually only as wholehearted accounts of enthusiastic teachers who have had an "experience" worth talking about. While such writing cannot be regarded as research, it may play a helpful role in scientific progress. Thus Gates (419: 90) stated: "For specialists in scientific study to set themselves apart from the course of critical and creative theoretical inquiry would be as fatal a mistake as for the theorists to disregard the results of experimentation. Broader views, and more searching criticisms of both investigation and generalization, as well as more and better research, are required to enable the scientific method to realize its high promise." There follows a review of those investigations which were concerned with what may be classified as "general methods" either because the procedure