INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
March, 1923
303
as to give them prominence in the minds of the authors. These students are often late in registration and getting to work in the laboratories. They have difficulty in finding classrooms and proper teachers, in following oral or even printed directions. They are often industrious, aggressive, and persistent to an extent where these qualities almost cease to be virtues. They are frequently of superior physique and pleasing personality, often becoming prominent in athletics or student affairs. These students are apt to be rather brazen in their demands on a teacher’s time and attention. Any inability on their part to do good work is frequently attributed to the personal animosity of the teacher rather than to any limitations of their own. They learn slowly but often thoroughly. They seem able to learn a subject only up to a certain point. If this point falls below the passing requirement and the course is repeated, they profit little or nothing by the repetition. The characteristics of students making high ratings are not so clearly defined from our experience, but we can say that generally they are not conscious of their superiority. They are apt to be rather retiring, dreamy, and lacking in aggressiveness, persistence, and well-defined purpose. The table shows that more than half of the students in the 91-100 decile made C or less. It is with a feeling of our own inadequacy that we view the fact that so many of these superior students are lost in mediocrity. Possibly, sectioning according to intelligence ratings might help remedy this condition Students who have low ratings do better work in sections where the average intelligence is high than where i t is low. This may permit several interpretations. Teachers are apt to “pitch” their teaching to the intelligence of the weakest students in the class. When this is the case bright students are apt to go “wool gathering” and the dull ones to “putter” in their intellectual efforts. Where the average intelligence of the group is higher, the teaching will be pitched higher and the mental processes of the weaker students will be accelerated. The idea here advocated is that instruction will be more effective if adapted to the intelligence of the superior rather than the inferior members of the class.
Since making this study we have less confidence in the value of personal estimates formed from contacts with students. Both a pleasing personality and a plausible “human-interest” story lose potency in explaining away shortcomings when it is known that the student involved has low intelligence, and that the case in point is a characteristic and not an exceptional sample of the work of such a person. This paper has tacitly assumed that the grades recorded are accurate measures of performance and has called into question the accuracy of the intelligence-test ratings in indicating the relative merits of students. Yet, the extreme fallibility of teachers’ marks has been pointed out by Kelly3 and is here freely admitted. It is a frequent experience with many teachers that examination questions on which final grades are based are stated in such a way that they give rise to answers so poorly formulated that only a mind-reader could tell what the student really knows. In such cases readers of equal competence or the same reader on different occasions will give widely divergent grades on the same paper. Before rejecting the indications of intelligence tests as to the relative merits of students, this element of variability should be eliminated from the marking systems against which the intelligence tests are checked. The desirability of effort toward standardization and stabilization of marks as truer and more precise measures of attainment, is apparent to all who have investigated present conditions. Possibly, some of the standardized tests for particular subjects now being promulgated by workers in the field of education will render material aid in the solution of this problem.
Motion Picture Films
Local Section Officers
CONCLUSION If taken with proper allowances, intelligence tests are of considerable aid in dealing with superior and inferior students. They are most stimulating in bringing to notice faults inherent in the established system and helping correct them. Further, their development and modification with time promises to make them increasingly accurate and useful. a “Teachers’ Marks,” Teachers College bution to Education No. 66.
Columbia University, Contri-
The following local Section Officers Of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL Films ;produced by the fo1lowing companies, which are supplementary to the list published in the November issue of THIS SoCEZY have been chosen for the Year 1923: JOURNAL, are distributed by the International Committee of New Haven Northern Indiana Y. M. C. A.’s, 347 Madison Ave., New York, N. IT. Chairman: TREATB. JOHNSON. Chairman: E. N. WEBER. Corticelli Silk Mills Ohio Wool Growers Association
Illinois Watch Company Kelly-Springfield Tires Keri Chickeries (poultry) Lounsebury Soule Company (shoes) Monitor Stove Works
Rice Millers of America (vitamins) Sidway Mercantile Company (baby carriages) Southern Pine Association Wahl Rope Company
The following films, some of which were included in the list published in the December issue, are among those which may be secured through the Y. M. C. A.: Belt Making and Tanning For the Good of the Commonwealth (steel) From Cocoon t o Milady’s Dress Grape Juice Industry How Life Regins How Petroleum Is Produced Making of Soap Making Cane Sirup Making Rust-Resisting Iron Making Cut Glass Making Rubber Tires
Money (metal mining) Oxygen the Wonder Worker Petroleum-From Well t o Consumer Potter Making Pure Aods-Oleomargarine Romance of Glass Story of a Box of Candy Story of Evaporated Milk Sugar Refining Terra Cotta Wonders of a Modern Oil Refinery
The Ford Motion Picture Laboratories, Detroit, Mich., in the Ford Educational Library provide educational films on various subjects including agriculture, sanitation, industrial geography, as well as some technical subjects. The films are sold outright, instead of being rented. The 1922 films are sold for $50 per reel, either standard inflammable film or noninflammable, while former reels of the Ford Weekly on inflammable stock may be obtained a t lower rates.
Vice Chairman: J. F . HUTCHINSON. Vice Chairman: P. J. BYRNE,JR. Secretary: BLAIRSAXTON. Secretary: V. C. BIDLACK. Treasurer: J. L. CHRISTIE. Treasurer: M. W. LYDON,JR. Councilor: HARRY W. FOOTE Councilor: J. A. NIEUWLAND. Member-&Large: J. A. KINGSBURY.
Louisville President: C. E. BALES. Vice President: T. J. BOSMAN. Secretary-Treasurer: C. E. GEIGER. Councilor: A. W. HOMBERGER.
Correlation of School Chemistry The following committee has been appointed to consider improvements in the correlation of high school and college chemistrv : NEILE. GORDON, University of Maryland, chairman. W. A. NOYES,University of Illinois. LYMANC. NEWELL,Boston University. R. E. SWAIN,Leland Stanford University. W. SBCBRBLOM, Phillips-Exeter Academy, Exeter, N. H. LOUISW. MATTERN, McKinley Manual Training High School, Washing-
ton, D. C. JOHN R. KUEBLER, Shortridge High School, Indianapolis, Ind.
