Chemical Digest
NATION-WIDE EXPERIMENT GRADES VALUE OF FILMS IN CLASSROOM TEACHING Marked superiority of class work done by children taught with films over that of children taught by other classroom methods has been demonstrated by the formal completion of the most extensive experiment ever undertaken in education. A 33 per cent gain in geography and a 15 per cent gain in general science were scored by approximately 5500 children, taught with specially prepared films, over 5500 taught the same subject material without the aid of motion pictures, in a trial in public schools in twelve widely scattered cities, directed by Dr. Ben D. Wood of Columbia University and Dr. Frank N. Freeman of the University of Chicago. At the middle of October the two educators finished their 50,000 word report on the experiment, which was conducted over a period of ten weeks last spring. Films Would Reduce Failures
If properly planned classroom films can raise pupils' marks by an average of 24 per cent as in this experiment, the report indicated, many failures will be turned into passing marks, since the great majority of failures are by less than 24 per cent. Thus the time required for repeating courses will be saved in many children's education, and large cost will be saved to municipalities. The average expense of keeping a child in school for a year is $100, which in Chicago, for instance, where there are 30,000 failures a year, would mean a saving of $3,000,000 a year if failures could be completely eliminated. The experiment, representing the first time a nation-wide investigation has been made into the controversial question of the value of films in classroom teaching, was sponsored by the Eastman Kodak Company, which, as the result of the preliminary findings of Dr. Wood and Dr. Freeman last spring, established a $1,000,000 subsidiary corporation, Eastman Teaching Films, Incorporated, to prepare educational films for use from the primary grades up through graduate technical school work. The earlier report of Dr. Wood and Dr. Freeman said: We are making a preliminary report at this time because we believe that enough evidence is in to warrant a continuance of production of classroom films and because a delay in production until after the complete report is prepared would seriously interrupt the preparation of a film program for the schools.
