Abstract
As a step toward canalizing research activities in the field of secondary education, much of which might otherwise run to waste, the United States Office of Education has published a bulletin on "Needed Research in Secondary Education"(Washington, D.C.: Supt. of Documents. Pp. 70. Price 10 c). The bulletin is largely based on the monographs of the National Survey of Secondary Education, a collection of important research studies (more than 4,400 pages in all) relating to organization of schools, the pupil, administrative and supervisory problems and personnel, the curriculum and "the extra-curriculum". Before proceeding to indicate specific problems needing investigation, the author discusses some general characteristics of contemporary methods of educational research, distinguishing, for the purpose of evaluating results, three levels of quality: the study of the results of practices (1) in any and all schools as found; (2) in schools selected for their outstanding merit, and (3) in experimental conditions set up especially for the purpose of testing theory. He emphasizes the need for more co-ordinated and co-operative research enterprises such as the college entrance inquiry, undertaken by the Progressive Education Association, into college entrance problems, in which three hundred colleges and thirty schools are participating. Indications of specific problems needing investigation are given under twenty-five headings, corresponding with the several survey monographs already referred to ; for example, individual differences, guidance, interpreting the secondary school to the public, and the library.
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Research in Education in the United States. Nature 142, 990–991 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142990c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142990c0