This study was designed to investigate an alternative approach for teaching the beginning level Western Civilization course on a two-year college campus. Specifically, this study compared the effectiveness of the traditional lecture method and an experimental approach designed around small discussion groups. (Author)

Research on the use of discussion in adult education has been largely concerned with comparing it with the use of other instructional techniques and with measuring opinion change. Many studies, such as Kurt Lewin's study of food habits, have compared the effectiveness of group discussion as contrasted with lecture in changing opinions and…

The primary problem was to investigate the relationships between two methods of presenting biological information (lecture-laboratory and audio-tutorial) and students' attitudes toward biology and their terminal achievement. A total of 259 students from Grand Rapids Junior College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, participated while 136 students from…

Present methods of high school and college instruction in history, namely, the instructor centered approaches, have made the study of history irrelevant for many students, and hence objectives for teaching history are seldom realized. Even good lectures, and most discussion classes, result in the student acting as a passive observer, never…

The West Tennessee Research Development Consortium, formed to increase the potentiality of research in two small West Tennessee Colleges, consists of a project designed to train in research methodology one research person on each of the two campuses, and to offer concurrently an inservice training program to eight faculty members in each of the…

In order to determine the feasibility of bringing outstanding teachers to the high school classroom, 5 small Colorado schools examined multi-school sharing of information through use of long-distance conference telephone calls. Three of the experiments involved college professors lecturing via telephone to high school students in American History…

This study was conducted to extend the present state of research involving independent study as a teaching and learning methodology in the 2-year community college. A stratified random sample of 241 subjects was organized into six day and two night sessions of freshman English at Prince George's Community College, Largo, Maryland. Four instructors…

Because mass media form one of the most important means of adult education, this two-volume textbook teaches the educational uses of radio. Instructions and sample scripts are included for talk, interview, discussion, magazine, feature, and drama programs. Each section is followed by questions to test the student's memory of basic concepts and…

An Introductory Sociology class enrolling up to 1,000 students per semester was the group used in this experiment to discover empirically validated means of teaching the mass class with both emotional satisfaction to students and pedagogical efficiency. The course was conducted in lecture-discussion style with two lectures and one discussion…

Although Fred Keller's personalized system of instruction (PSI) has had a surprisingly rapid adoption in colleges and universities since its introduction in 1964, sound evaluation techniques for the method are still needed. Verbal reports are vague, while other methods that have been used are idiosyncratic and depend on the way the teacher…

A review of research on student note taking shows no evidence that note taking activities have positive effects on learning. Recent findings are presented which bring previous negative conclusions into question. Suggestions of further research needs emphasize types of note taking strategies and the use students make of notes. (JT)

Explains procedures and statistical results of a study comparing the effectiveness of programed instruction and the lecture method in teaching bibliographic search skills to undergraduates. Results indicate the programed approach is a viable method, which can be used as a satisfactory alternative to routine introductory lectures. (CWM)

A modified mastery learning method resulted in significantly higher achievement and improved attitudes of educational psychology students than either traditional lectures or a combined approach. (Editor/MM)