Chemical Education Today
From Past Issues
Early Automated Testing: The 5-0-2 by Kathryn R. Williams
Fingerwalking. That’s a term I’ve coined (with considerable help from the Yellow Pages logo) to describe my antiquated way of finding interesting glimpses into JCE’s past. Although I often use the online index to locate supplementary materials, I’ve happened on most of my ideas while sitting in the library and turning pages one-by-one. Such was the case a few months ago when my eye struck upon the picture reproduced here (1). The “5-0-2 Automatic Rater” reminded me of scenes from Captain Video and the like from early television, and I thought for a few seconds that the picture originated from a cartoon or comic book. Upon further reading, I learned that the 5-0-2 actually did exist. Developed by the Office of Naval Research during World War II as an instructional aid, the 5-0-2 was sort of an educational pin-ball machine—sans coin slot. The instructor preloaded the rater with up to 500 index cards, each containing a multiple choice question. The game began by pushing the Start button, causing one of the cards
The 5-0-2 Automatic Rater. (JCE 1951, 28, 159.)
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Typical question cards. (JCE 1951, 28, 159.)
to appear in the Question Window. The player was given five seconds to read the card and press one of the numbered answer buttons. The Rater determined the correct answer by mechanical feelers, which detected the position of a notch in the question card. A correct response counted 20 points with a one-point-per-second overtime penalty. Regardless of the point outcome, the card then moved to the Answer Window, so the player could study the question and correct response for any length of time. The authors, R. A. Cooley and T. J. Roemer of the University of Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, surmised that the automatic rater might be helpful to their physical chemistry students (1). The nearby Naval Reserve unit loaned them a used 5-0-2, which they loaded with physical chemistry questions and placed in the laboratory “so that it might be played during any free time from the experimental work.” Despite delays due to mechanical problems and time spent preparing the questions and cards, “each student played…at least once and filled out a questionnaire on the rater.” Unfortunately, although “the students felt the rater was helpful…, there was no correlation between interest in the machine and grade received….” Despite this inauspicious finding, the authors emphasized possible applications of the devices “in any course in which multiple answer questions can be used effectively.” For example, the rater could serve as a “less arduous means of reviewing course material” and as a “minimal accomplishment device.” The authors further suggested that a “rater could be designed as versatile as Vannevar Bush’s memex.” Intrigued by the unfamiliar term, memex, I paid a visit to the library’s microfilm collection to find the July, 1945 article cited by Cooley and Roemer. In “As We May Think” (2, 3), Bush, at that time Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, foretold of post-war advances in infor-
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 79 No. 1 January 2002 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
Chemical Education Today
From Past Issues mation storage, manipulation, and retrieval. He named one such invention of the future the “memex…a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.” I encourage historians of the computer age to read Bush’s image of the memex (memory extender), a desk with “slanting translucent screens… a keyboard and sets of buttons and levers.” The memex stored information in “supermicrofilm,” allowed users to input text and graphic information on a translucent screen, and filed or correlated information through code numbers entered via buttons on the desktop. Cooley and Roemer proposed that a modified 5-0-2 “might be built into the student’s desk of the future”. To my knowledge, the 5-0-2’s sojourn as a civilian never extended past the physical chemistry lab at the School of Mines and Metallurgy. But the mechanical question-andanswer device holds its place as forerunner of computeraided learning so widely accepted today. Still, I doubt that
we will soon see titles like “Second Law”, “Activated Complex”, or “Uncertainty Principle” on the video game bestseller list. Literature Cited 1. Cooley, R. A.; Roemer, T. J. J. Chem. Educ. 1951, 28, 158– 159. 2. Bush, V. Atlantic Monthly, July 1945, pp 101–108. Bush, V. Life, September 10, 1945, pp 112–124. Also available at http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~duchier/misc/vbush/vbush.shtml (accessed Nov 2001). 3. Nyce, James J., Kahn, Paul, Eds. From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind’s Machine; Academic: San Diego, 1991.
Kathryn R. Williams is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Florida, P.O. Box 117200, Gainesville, FL 32611-7200;
[email protected].
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 79 No. 1 January 2002 • Journal of Chemical Education
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