Dr. V.K. Maheshwari, Ph.D

Confucius represented his teachings as lessons transmitted from antiquity. He claimed that he was “a transmitter and not a maker” and that all he did reflected his “reliance on and love for the ancients.” (Lunyu 7.1)

Confucius was born, about 500 B.C., at the period there was no central government in China . It was more like a feudal society. A king or lord had a castle and everybody else in that castle worked for the lord and were his slaves. The king was responsible for their livelihood.  Confucius himself supposedly was born into a noble family, but the nobility lost their wealth and prestige so he grew up poor. He learned on his own, because in those days there were no learning centers or universities. Confucius traveled to different kingdoms and had disciples. Confucius promoted the idea that people ought to get together to have an orderly society, to be devoted to the people so that everyone can have a better life. He was trying to convince the leaders of those little kingdoms that they should not with narrow vision just concentrate all their own wealth in a little city. He taught that one king ought to talk with his neighbor, not to fight him, but to reason with him Confucius’ ideas left a very deep mark on society because it worked for progressive evolvement. Later on, it became the only system that was adopted by the Han Dynasty.
Confucius was a famous thinker and social philosopher of China, whose teachings have deeply influenced East Asia for centuries. Living in the Spring and Autumn period (a time when feudal states fought against each other), he was convinced of his ability to restore the world’s order, though failed. After much traveling around China to promote his ideas among rulers, he eventually became involved in teaching disciples. His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, and justice and sincerity. Used since then as the imperial orthodoxy, Confucius’ thoughts have been developed into a vast and complete philosophical system known in the west as Confucianism
The root  of the teachings of Confucius is that there are things you must have in order for a stable, developing, flourishing civilized society to survive. These are called golden rules and it turns out that every major religion in the world has the same set of golden rules. One need not be a super being or supernatural being to know this. These are the unspoken rules or universal rules that each civilization at certain times will realize because they are fundamental.
The Analects is a short collection of his discussions with disciples, compiled posthumously. These contain an overview of his teachings. Confucius presents himself as a transmitter who invented nothing and his greatest emphasis may be on study, the Chinese character that opens the book. In this respect, he is seen by Chinese people as the Greatest Master. Far from trying to build a systematic theory of life and society, he wanted his disciples to think deeply for themselves and relentlessly study the outside world. For almost two thousand years, Analects had also been the fundamental course of study for any Chinese scholar, for a man was not considered morally upright or enlightened if he did not study Confucius’ works
Confucius believe that self-restraint is very difficult ; biologically the human nature is not designed for self-restraint. So  Confucius try to give people a sociological reason to have self-restraint., he says that you should not kill people because you are a member of society, and the person that you kill is also a member of society, and society belongs to all the people. It is not just your society; you are not the society, you are part of society, and the other person is also part of society. Therefore, you two should get together and stop killing each other. The end result is to achieve a stable, peaceful, harmonious society.
While Confucius’ system is termed a religion, it ought rather to be regarded as a method of political and social life, built upon a slight foundation of philosophy. It contains no trace of a personal God, though there are indeed a number of allusions to a certain heavenly agency or power, Shang-te, whose outward emblem is Tien, or the visible firmament. Because of this similarity, people think of Confucianism as a religion, but it is more a practical philosophy that deals with people and practical things. It does not rely on an image of the supernatural. Confucius says that if you can understand the real meaning of society, the people-to-people relationship, you don’t need all that, you already know how you’re supposed to behave. In other words, you are already behaving according to the commandments, you are already practicing what you preach, you are helping other people whenever you can, you don’t let your greed go rampant.
In Confucius thoughts we shall not find a system of philosophy ,a consistent structure of logic ,metaphysics ,ethics and politics dominated by one idea
Famous throughout the world as a Chinese thinker and social philosopher, Confucius laid great emphasis on personal and governmental morality. He believed in the rightness of social relationships, fairness and honesty. Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand. (Confucius, Analects With time, his way of thought came to be developed into a system of philosophy, known as Confucianism, which had a deep influence on Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese thought and life. It was Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci who introduced Confucianism to Europe and gradually, it spread to the rest of the world as well.
Confucius’ philosophy was predominately a moral and political one. It was founded on the belief that heaven and earth coexist in harmony and balanced strength whilst maintaining a perpetual dynamism. Human beings, he taught, are sustained by these conditions and must strive to emulate the cosmic model.
Since his dominating  passion was the application of philosophy to conduct and government , Confucius avoided metaphysics ,and tried to turn the minds of his followers  from all recondite or celestial concerns. Though he made occasional mention of Heaven and prayer , and counseled his disciples to observe  sedulously the traditional rites of ancestor  worship and national sacrifice, he was so negative in his answers to theological questions that modern commentators agree in calling him an agnostic. When Tsze-kung  asked him ,’’Do the dead have knowledge ,or are they without knowledge ? Confucius refused to make  any definite reply .When Ke Loo asked about ‘serving the spirits”(of the dead ),the master responded “While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?” Ke Loo asked “I venture to ask about death ?”and was answered  “While you do not know life how can you know about death ? When Fan Che inquired “what constituted wisdom ? “ Confucius said “To give one ‘s self earnestly to the duties due to men and while respecting  spiritual beings ,to keep aloof from them , may be called wisdom. His disciples tell us that the subjects on which the master did not talk were extraordinary things ,feats of strength ,disorder, and spiritual beings . They were much disturbed by  this philosophic modesty, and doubtless wished that the master would solve for them the mysteries of heaven the book of lieb- tze tells with glee the fable of the street urchin who ridiculed the master when he confessed his inability to answer their simple question- Is the sun nearer to the earth at dawn ,when it is larger ,or at noon, when it hotter ? The only metaphysics that Confucius would recognize was the  search for unity in all phenomena , and the effort to find some stabilizing harmony between the laws of right conduct and the regularities of nature .Tsze he said to one of his favorites, you think , I suppose that I am one who learns many things and keeps them in his memory ? Tsze-kung replied, ‘’Yes but perhaps it is not so? No was the answer; I seek unity , all pervading .This after all , is the essence of philosophy.
His master passion was for morality. I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue would esteem nothing above it.(Confucius, Analects The chaos of his time seemed to him a moral chaos ,caused perhaps by the weakening of the ancient faith and the spread of sophist skepticism as to right and wrong ;it was to be cured not by a return to the old beliefs , but by an earnest search for more complete knowledge , and a  moral regeneration based upon a soundly regulated family life .T he Confucian program is expressed pithily and profoundly in the famous paragraphs of The Great Learning Another saying of Confucius is well known: Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you. My interpretation of this is uniform terms for equal justice. This next one is very great: Great man sets good examples then he invites others to follow. In today’s language we say do as I do.
Confucius taught the of reasoning not through rules or syllogisms  but by perpetual play of  his keen mind upon the opinions of his pupils; when they went out from his school they knew nothing about logic , but they could think clearly and to the point. Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. (Confucius, Analects Clarity and honesty of thought and expression were first lessons of the Master. The whole end of speech is to be understood –a lesson not always remembered by philosophy , When you  know a thing , to hold that you know it and when you do not , to admit the fact – this is  knowledge . Obscurity of thought and insincere inaccuracy of speech seemed to him national calamities. If a prince who was not in actual fact and power a prince should cease to be called a prince , if a father who was not a fatherly father should  cease to be called a father , if an unofficial son should cease to be called a son –then men might be        stirred to reform abuses too often covered  up with words. Hence  when  Tsze-Ioo told Confucius, The prince of Wei has been   waiting for you , in order with you to administer the government ; what will you consider the first thing to be done ? he answered to the astonishment of prince and pupil , What is necessary is to rectify names.
The ancients who wished to illustrate the highest virtue throughout the empire first ordered well their own states .Wishing to order well their states , they first regulated their families .Wishing to regulate their families ,,they cultivated their own selves . Wishing to cultivate their own selves , they first rectified their hearts Wishing to rectify their hearts , they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts ,they first extended to the utmost their knowledge .Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things .Things being investigated  knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete , their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere hearts were then rectified .Their hearts being rectified ,their own selves were cultivated . their own selves being cultivated , their families were regulated .their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole empire was made tranquil and happy .
Confucius believed that doing the wrong thing is instinctive, and doing the right thing needs to be taught, he emphasized education. The purpose of education is to cultivate moral values in people’s minds and to encourage people to do the right thing. Only through education can people in society learn to live with each other in peace and harmony and support and help each other for the benefit of all, creating social prosperity and happiness. The teachings of Confucius are embodied in the Four Books and Five Classics. The Four Books are the Great Learning, the Doctrine of Mean, the Analects, and Mencius. The Five Classics are Shu Ching, a political vision; Shih Ching, a poetic vision; I-Ching, the Book of Change; Li Chi, a social vision; and Chun Chiu, a historical vision. An easier way to understand Confucianism is to study the Sayings of Confucius, one liners or short stories which depict his beliefs. When a sufficient number of these are taken together, there emerges the essence of Confucianism.
A hallmark of Confucius’ thought is his emphasis on education. He disparages those who have faith in natural understanding or intuition and argues that the only real understanding of a subject comes from long and careful study. Study, for Confucius, means finding a good teacher and imitating his words and deeds.
This reflects the idea that there is experience, learning experience, that the future (younger) generation can adopt. This whole idea is also called ancestor worship. A lot of people may have misinterpreted ancestor worship as a worship of statues or images, which is true in part. But the other part is the so-called worship of ancestors is really trying to understand your own tradition. The tradition is based on certain unique experiences of your fathers or great grandfathers. It does not come up from nowhere. It comes up because of some past event, so it has a reason; therefore there is a lesson in there. That’s the reason why you try to remember the tradition.
A good teacher is someone older who is familiar with the ways of the past and the practices of the ancients. Study the past if you would define the future. I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. (Confucius, Analects)
While he sometimes warns against excessive reflection and meditation, Confucius’ position appears to be a middle course between studying and reflecting on what one has learned. “He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.” (Lunyu 2.15) Confucius, himself, is credited by the tradition with having taught altogether three thousand students, though only seventy are said to have truly mastered the arts he cherished. Confucius is willing to teach anyone, whatever their social standing, as long as they are eager and tireless. He taught his students morality, proper speech, government, and the refined arts. While he also emphasizes the “Six Arts” — ritual, music, archery, chariot-riding, calligraphy, and computation — it is clear that he regards morality the most important subject. Confucius’ pedagogical methods are striking. He never discourses at length on a subject. Instead he poses questions, cites passages from the classics, or uses apt analogies, and waits for his students to arrive at the right answers. “I only instruct the eager and enlighten the fervent. If I hold up one corner and a student cannot come back to me with the other three, I do not go on with the lesson.” (Lunyu 7.8).
Confucius’ goal is to create gentlemen who carry themselves with grace, speak correctly, and demonstrate integrity in all things. His strong dislike of the sycophantic “petty men,” whose clever talk and pretentious manner win them an audience, is reflected in numerous Lunyu passages. Confucius finds himself in an age in which values are out of joint. Actions and behavior no longer correspond to the labels originally attached to them. “Rulers do not rule and subjects do not serve,” he observes. (Lunyu 12.11; cf. also 13.3) This means that words and titles no longer mean what they once did. Moral education is important to Confucius because it is the means by which one can rectify this situation and restore meaning to language and values to society. He believes that the most important lessons for obtaining such a moral education are to be found in the canonical Book of Songs, because many of its poems are both beautiful and good. Thus Confucius places the text first in his curriculum and frequently quotes and explains its lines of verse. For this reason, the Lunyu is also an important source for Confucius’ understanding of the role poetry and art more generally play in the moral education of gentlemen as well as in the reformation of society. Recent archaeological discoveries in China of previously lost ancient manuscripts reveal other aspects of Confucius’s reverence for the Book of Songs and its importance in moral education. These manuscripts show that Confucius had found in the canonical text valuable lessons on how to cultivate moral qualities in oneself as well as how to comport oneself humanely and responsibly in public.
This is the keynote and substance of the Confucian philosophy ; one might forget all other words of the Master and his disciples, and yet carry away with these ‘ the essence of the matter’ and a complete guide of life .The world is at war, says Confusions because it constituent states are improperly governed; these are improperly governed because no amount of legislation can take the place of of the natural social order provided by the family; the family is in disorder, and fails to regulate themselves because they have not  rectified their hearts –i.e., they have not cleansed  their own souls of disorderly desires; their hearts are not rectified because their thinking is insincere, doing scant justice to reality and concealing rather than revealing their own natures; their thinking is insincere because they let their wishes discolor the facts and determine their conclusions, instead of seeking to extend their knowledge to the utmost by  impartially investigating the nature of things. Let men seek impartial knowledge, and their thinking will become sincere; let their thoughts be sincere and their hearts will be cleansed of disorderly desires; let their hearts be so cleansed, and their own selves will be regulated; let their own selves will be regulated, and their families will automatically be regulated – not by virtuous sermonizing or passionate punishments, but by silent power of example itself; let  the family be so regulated with knowledge, sincerity and example itself; let the family be so regulated with knowledge, sincerity and example, and it  will give forth such spontaneous social order that successful government will once more be a feasible thing; let the state maintain internal justice and tranquility, and all the world will be peaceful and happy.- It is a counsel of perfection, and forgets that man is a beast of prey; but it offers us a goal to strike at, and a ladder to climb. It is one of the golden texts of  philosophy.
Confucianism has lasted for generations is  because it understands the basic  human nature on one hand and promotes necessary discipline and education on the other.  The human nature is universal. Human nature consists of both good and bad. The good human nature includes kindness, charity, mutual respect, dignity, devotion, self responsibility, and so on. The bad human nature includes greed, domination, selfishness, destruction, waste, non-productivity, and so on. Unfortunately, the good nature is hard to keep.  But It is not impossible, it can be cultivated, through the education process.. Our objective should be to enhance the good aspect of the human nature and contain the bad. The enhancement and the containment can only be accomplished by reasoning based on real human relationship, and by appropriate release of human energy and animal instinct in harmless and non-personal cooperative activities.A political culture based on responsibility and trust is politics with moral persuasion. The purpose of government is not only to provide food and maintain order but also to educate. A political culture based on responsibility and trust is politics with moral persuasion. The purpose of government is not only to provide food and maintain order but also to educate
Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it. (Confucius)Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses. (Confucius)I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. (Confucius)Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star. (Confucius)It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop. (Confucius)Men’s natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart. (Confucius)Respect yourself and others will respect you. (Confucius) Study the past if you would define the future. (Confucius) What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others. (Confucius)When anger rises, think of the consequences. (Confucius)When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves. (Confucius)Where so ever’s you go, go with all your heart. (Confucius)They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. (Confucius, Analects)
References.Ames, R. & Hall, D., 1987, Thinking Through Confucius, Albany, SUNY PressBisland, Elizabeth; three wise men of the east. Chapel Hill, N.C
Brinkley,Capt.F; China; Its History, Arts and Litrature.iov Boston
Brown,Brian;The story of Confucius. Philadelphia.
Chu His; The philosophy of human nature London
Confucius; The book of History W.G.Old  London.Brooks, E. & A., 1998, The Original Analects, New York: Columbia University Press.
Creel, H., 1949, Confucius, Harper.
Fingarette, H., 1972, The Secular as Sacred, Harper.
Knoblock, J., 1988, 1990, 1994, Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works (Three Volumes), Stanford University Press.
Lau, D. C., 1979, Confucius: The Analects, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Nivison, D., 1996, The Ways of Confucianism, Open Court.
Riegel, J., 1997, “Eros, Introversion, and the Beginnings of Shijing Commentary,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 57.1, 143-177.
Schwartz, B., 1985, The World of Thought in Ancient China, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Will Durant ;Our oriental heritage. Simon and Schuster

I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying.  Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying.  ~Charles C. Finn

If the question “what is philosophy?” represents a vexing philosophical issue it should not come as a big surprise that it resists any attempt to be answered in a definitive manner. Philosophical issues and reflections are notorious for their inconclusiveness. This is particularly true of the question “what is philosophy?”. In fact, it is virtually impossible to give one universally accepted definition of philosophy. All philosophers will not agree even upon some general formal characteristics, for instance that philosophy is a discursive activity of our intellect. Widely circulated definitions of philosophy are either too general or too one-sided to be considered as anything better than useful hints about the character of philosophical thinking. In that respect philosophy is a unique discipline. No other subject in the curriculum has to agonize with a similar problem of an elusive self-definition

What is Philosophy?

In most languages there are words that are translated into English as ‘philosophy’ — in European languages, those words often share the same Greek roots as the English word. The activities to which such words refer have a history shared with philosophy, but at some point after Kant there was a parting of the ways. The activities referred to by `philosophy’ are different in various ways from the activities referred to by words like `philosophie’, `Philosophie’, `filosofia’, etc.

The derivation of the word “philosophy” from the Greek is suggested by the following words and word-fragments.

             philo—love of, affinity for, liking of

             philander—to engage in love affairs frivolously

             philanthropy—love of mankind in general

             philately—postage stamps hobby

             phile—(as in “anglophile”) one having a love for

             philology—having a liking for words

             sophos—wisdom

             sophist—lit. one who loves knowledge

             sophomore—wise and moros—foolish; i.e. one who thinks he knows many things

             sophisticated—one who is knowledgeable

B.            A suggested definition for our beginning study is as follows.

Philosophy is the systematic inquiry into the principles and presuppositions of any field of study.              From a psychological point of view, philosophy is an attitude, an approach, or a calling to answer or to ask, or even to comment upon certain peculiar problems (i.e., specifically the kinds of problems usually relegated to the main branches discussed below in Section II).

There is, perhaps, no one single sense of the word “philosophy.” Eventually many writers abandon the attempt to define philosophy and, instead, turn to the kinds of things philosophers do.

  Philosophy is a persistent attempt to gain insight into the nature of the world and of ourselves by means of systematic reflection.

Philosophical Lexicon

Reflection = (from Latin: reflectere = bend back): the way of thinking which is “mirrored” back to itself; reflexive thinking is one that takes itself as an object of thought.

Contemplation = (from Latin: contemplari = gaze at attentively): activity of thinking, theoretical thinking.

Demonstration = (from Latin: de=from, monstrare = show): indirect knowledge based on the proof that clearly shows the inferences that lead to the conclusion.

Speculative = (from Latin: speculum = mirror): theoretical thinking that reflects the totality of objects involved. Speculation leads thinking from visible effects of a distant cause to the ultimate (first, most general) principles.

Equivocally = (from Latin: aequivocus = with equal voice, but different meaning):

speaking ambiguously, using one nominal designation (Latin: vox) for different things.

Univocally = (from Latin: unus vox, one voice) using one expression in only one sense, speaking unambiguously.

Scientistic = stemming from uncritical trust into sciences which are considered to cover the whole realm of sensible questions (don’t confuse with “scientific”!).

Pragmatistic = focused only to immediate useful consequences (from the Greek pragma, thing): to be distinguished from thepractical in the sense of ethical and political concerns (Greek praktikos, pertaining to human conduct).

Common sense = ordinary, everyday knowledge of ourselves and our surroundings.

Little questions = conventional questions that can be answered by relying on our common sense (what time is it?).

Big questions = questions that require systematic technical and scientific research (how did the ozone hole come into existence?).

Fundamental Questions = questions that make sense but cannot be answered by relying on common sense or scientific procedures (what is time?).

Difficulty in  Defining  Philosophy

History:                Philosophy changes historically both in respect to its content and its character.. Thus we cannot find a definition of philosophy that would be both essential and sensitive to its historical variety.

Subject Matter:                Philosophy does not have any specific subject matter and hence cannot be defined with regard to any particular area of investigation. It may deal with every dimension of human life and can raise questions in any field of Hence trying to tie philosophy exclusively to one or any specific sphere would be an unjustified limitation of its reach.

Questioning hilosophy pursues questions rather than answers.. It is not an exaggeration to say that a philosopher is someone who can make a riddle out of any answer. Hence philosophy cannot be defined with recourse to some accepted tenets, beliefs and established class of propositions.

 “Philosophy,”Encyclopedia Britannica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911) Vol. 21defines “Philosophy … has no other subject matter than the nature of the real world, as that world lies around us in everyday life, and lies open to observers on every side. But if this is so, it may be asked what function can remain for philosophy when every portion of the field is already lotted out and enclosed by specialists? Philosophy claims to be the science of the whole; but, if we get the knowledge of the parts from the different sciences, what is there left for philosophy to tell us? To this it is sufficient to answer generally that the synthesis of the parts is something more than that detailed knowledge of the parts in separation which is gained by the man of science. It is with the ultimate synthesis that philosophy concerns itself; it has to show that the subject-matter which we are all dealing with in detail really is a whole, consisting of articulated members.”.

Eastern Thought, has different forms ranging from Taoism to Zen-Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation; despite some practically oriented strains (Confucianism), it is mostly intuitive, directed toward the Self and introspection; its insights come from our inwardness that needs to be emptied from all external influences; the Self is meditative, with ready made precepts for the resolution of all life problems; this is why so many self-help books draw on this tradition; Eastern sage is balanced, poised, silent; his/her prototype is the Buddha. The findings of Eastern wisdom are not fully communicable which prevents it from being entirely discoursive and argumentative.

Despite many deserved attempts to integrate Eastern thought (primarily Indian and Chinese) into Western intellectual tradition the differences are so huge that it is advisable not to apply the same term “philosophy” (itself of Western origin) to both.

The Historical Periods of Philosophy

The question of who is a philosopher, who major, who minor — is itself a philosophical question, as well as an historical question. The following is only one of many possible lists, depending on the criteria used for inclusion and exclusion. The list below is based on what I was told at school, books I have studied over the years, and my own judgment.

Ancient or Greek Philosophy (c. 600-150 B.C.)

•             Pre-Socratics: What is the unchanging reality that underlies reality’s changing appearances? Is it a “stuff” of some kind or is it a “form”?

•             Answer: Stuff (physis)

•             Thales of Miletus (fl. 585): water.

•             Anaximander of Miletus (611-546): the boundless (apeiron).

•             Anaximenes of Miletus (fl. c. 546): air (now rarefied or condensed).

•             Heraclitus of Ephesus (fl. 500): “fire being kindled or fire going out”, in accordance with the Word (logos): “All things flow and nothing stands. You cannot step into the same river twice” (Crat. 401d, 402a); Cratylus (5th-4th century): flux is the only reality.

•             Eleatics: Parmenides (fl. 500): despite the appearance of multiplicity (“the many”), reason demonstrates that there is only unity (“the one”); Zeno of Elea (fl. 460) (Paradoxes of Zeno).

•             Empedocles of Acragas (484-424): attraction and repulsion of the four elements (earth, water, air, fire).

•             Leucippus of Miletus (fl. c. 435); Democritus of Abdera (?460-357): atoms and the void.

•             Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (500-428): mind, or, intellect or intelligence (nous), and matter in the vortex.

•             Answer: Form: Pythagoras of Croton (b. Samos, c. 582): the first to call himself a “philosopher” or one who “seeks for truth” (Diog. L. viii, 8): numerical relationships: number.

•             Others: Xenophanes (b. Colophon, c. 570): The gods are in no way similar to men, either in body or in thought (nor are they immoral, as Homer and Hesiod portray them); if animals had gods, they would make them in their own image, too. About some things mankind can have only opinions, and never will have knowledge. Diagoras of Melos (fl. 466), called “the atheist”, because the story is told that he denied the existence of gods after they failed to punish a man who had broken his oath; and he said there would be more votive offerings if these were set by up those whose prayers the gods hadnot answered.

•             Classical Period (480-323 B.C.)

•             Sophists (Apol. 19e):

•             Protagoras of Abdera (c. 481-411): “Man is the measure of all things” (Crat. 386a). “As to the gods, I have no way of knowing whether or not they exist” (Theaet. 162d-e). The Athenian authorities burned his books in the marketplace as punishment for his presumed impiety.

•             Gorgias of Leontini (485?-380?): “Those who speak in general terms [as if there were an essence of virtue] … are wrong. To enumerate the virtues, as Gorgias did, is much nearer the mark than to make this kind of [general] definition” (Aristotle Pol. 1260a25); a teacher of rhetoric.

•             Prodicus of Ceos (born c. 470-460)

•             Hippias of Elis (contemporary of Socrates)

•             Thrasymachus (Plato, Republic, Book 1)

•             Antiphon (Aristotle, Physics 193a9)

•             Lycophron, student of Gorgias (ibid. 185b25)

•             Socrates of Athens (469?-399); see Plato’s Apology;Xenophon’s Memorabilia.

•             The Socratic Schools:

•             Megarians (Euclides of Megara, c. 430-360)

•             Antisthenes of Athens (c. 446-366): with Socrates, the impulse of the Cynic and Stoic Schools.

•             Cyrenaics (Aristippus of Cyrene, c. 435-350)

•             Plato of Athens (427-347): founded the “Old” Academy at Athens 386 B.C.; author of perhaps 28 dialogs and 13 letters.

•             Aristotle of Stagira (384-322): founded Lyceum in 334 (He and his students were called “Peripatetics”, either because they walked while philosophizing or because of the covered walkway at their school). The Middle Ages regarded Aristotle as il maestro di color che sanno(“the master of those who know”, Dante).

•             Theophrastus of Eresus (c. 370-286): Aristotle’s successor at the Lyceum.

•             Cynics (Diogenes of Sinope, 404-323)

•             Hellenistic Period

•             Epicurus of Samos (341-270): founded the Garden school at Athens 306.

•             Stoicism (Zeno of Citium, c. 344-261: founded school at the Stoa Poikile, or Painted Porch or Colonnade or Portico, at Athens 301)

•             Skeptics (Pyrrho of Elis, c. 360-270): no positive knowledge is possible. Of the “Middle” and “New” Academy: Arcesilaus of Pitane (c. 315-240): more Socratic than Platonic; Carneades of Cyrene (c. 213-129): philosophy consists of mere opinions and criticism of opinions.

•             Philosophy under Rome

•             Stoics: Seneca (d. 65 A.D.), Marcus Aurelius (121-180),Epictetus (d. 130 A.D.)

•             Lucretius (d. ca. 55 B.C.): On the Nature of Things

•             Medieval Philosophy

•             Plotinus (c. 205-270)

•             St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

•             Boethius (c. 480-524): The Consolation of Philosophy

•             St. Anselm (1033-1109)

•             Scholastic Theologians (“Schoolmen”); Scholasticism: “Faith seeking understanding” by using the tools of philosophy, which is the “handmaid of theology”: we can explore the “Mysteries of Faith” in a rational way.

•             Albert Magnus (“Albert the Great”) (c. 1193-1280)

•             Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274)

•             Bonaventure (1221-1274)

•             Duns Scotus (1265-1308)

•             Ockham (c. 1300-1349)

•             Islamic world: Avicenna (980-1037), Averroes (1126-1198)

•             Modern Philosophy [Renaissance: rediscovery of Greek and Latin classics, 14th-16th century] [The Reformation's rebellion against tradition, 16th century]

•             [Montaigne 1533-1592 [Que sais-je?], Francis Bacon 1561-1626, Hobbes 1588-1697, Isaac Newton’s Principia 1687, Blaise Pascal 1623-1662)]

•             The New Way of Ideas: “the direct object of perception is an idea in the mind”

•             Descartes (1596-1650): Rationalism

Malebranche (1638-1715)

•             Spinoza (1632-1677)

•             Leibniz (1646-1716)

•             Locke (1632-1704): Empiricism

•             Berkeley (1685-1753) (early Idealism)

•             Reid (1710-1796): “common sense”

•             Hume (1711-1776)

•             [Rousseau (1712-1778). Age of Enlightenment (Aufklärung): from Locke through Kant. Voltaire (1694-1778). Goethe (1749-1832)]

•             Kant (1724-1804): “Critical philosophy”

•             Fichte (1762-1814): Idealism

•             [German Romantic Movement (1796-1822)]

•             Schelling (1775-1854)

•             Hegel (1770-1831)

•             Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

•             19th Century Philosophy

•             Bentham (1748-1832): “Utilitarianism”

•             Nietzsche (1844-1900)

•             [Kierkegaard (1813-1855)]

•             Duthey (1833-1911)

•             Comte (1798-1857): “Positivism”

•             C. S. Peirce (1839-1914): “Pragmatism”

•             F. H. Bradley (1846-1924)

•             William James (1842-1910)

•             Contemporary Philosophy (20th Century Philosophy)

•             Husserl (1859-1938): “Phenomenology”

•             Frege (1848-1925): Logicism

•             Heidegger (1889-1976): “Existentialism”

•             Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976): “Analysis”

•             Bergson (1859-1941)

•             J. L. Austin (1911-1960)

•             Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, 1882-1936): Logical Positivism

•             G. E. Moore (1873-1958)

•             Wittgenstein (1889-1951)

The Source of Philosophy

Philosophy starts with bewilderment, astonishment, amazement about the world, life, and ourselves. Philosophy arises from the workings of an inquisitive mind which is bewildered by seemingly common things or by those that appear to be entirely impractical. It emerges out of readiness to follow the call of human intellectual curiosity beyond common sense acquaintanceship with the world

Philosophy does not stay by pure bewilderment and amazement. Philosophers articulate their initial amazement by formulating questions (mostly what- and why-questions and what ought to be) that guide their curiosity toward comprehension of the problem. This does not mean that they seek a simple formula for all the puzzles of the world Philosophy aims at understanding and enlightenment rather than shorthand answers.

“The great virtue of philosophy is that it teaches not what to think, but how to think. It is the study of meaning, of the principles underlying conduct, thought and knowledge. The skills it hones are the ability to analyze, to question orthodoxies and to express things clearly. However arcane some philosophical texts may be … the ability to formulate questions and follow arguments is the essence of education.”

When we speak of philosophy we use a term, which may be viewed in two senses. The first of  these is that of  the word itself which literally means  “ love of wisdom” .But to love wisdom does not necessarily make one a philosopher .Today, we think of philosophy in a more limited sense as man’s attempt to give meaning to his existence through the continued search for a comprehensive and consistent answer to basic problems .It is this second sense of the word which makes the philosopher an active person; one who seeks answers, rather than one who simply sits around engaging in idle and frivolous speculation. Today, most philosophers are actively concerned with life. THEY SEEK ANSWERS TO BASIC PROBLEMS. Thus we find that philosophers are doing as well as thinking, and it is their thinking which guides their doing .What they do is rooted in the search for answers to certain types of problems and the tentative answers they have formulated.

Philosophical Language: The capacity to understand and correctly apply fundamental philosophical concepts is of paramount importance in doing philosophy. A serious student must pay particular attention to philosophical terminology. One of the earliest and most persistent difficulties in doing philosophy is the complex language used by philosophers. Philosophers need to express thoughts that sometimes push the language beyond its limits, not because they like to be obscure, but because they consider new ideas and unusual aspects of reality. That is the reason why they often coin new terms or use already existing words in a new peculiar sense. Nominal familiarity with some expressions could be very deceptive. Looking up into philosophical dictionaries has, therefore, to become student’s regular habit. Among other things, philosophy is about words and their meanings.

The three great problems of philosophy are the problems of reality, knowledge, and value-

This way philosophy deals with three basic areas

.Area related with what aspect ,it is METAPHYSICS

.Area related with how aspect ,it is EPISTOMOLOGY,and

Area related with what ought to be aspect, it is AXIOLOGY.

(1)The problem  of reality is this; What is the nature of the universe in which we live? Or ,in the last analysis, what is real ? The branch of philosophy which deals with this problem is termed as METAPHYSICS

 Questions Asked in Metaphysics are

What is out there?

What is reality?

Does Free Will exist?

Is there such a process as cause and effect?

Do abstract concepts (like numbers) really exist?

(2) The problem of knowledge is this; How does a man know what is real? That is to say, how do we come by our knowledge and how can we be sure it is true, not error or illusion? The area of philosophy which is devoted to solving this problem is termed as EPISTOMOLOGY.

 Fundamental Problems in Epistemology are

What can we know?

How can we know it?

Why do we know some things, but not others?

How do we acquire knowledge?

Is knowledge possible?

Can knowledge be certain?

How can we differentiate truth from falsehood?

Why do we believe certain claims and not others?

(3 )The problem of value ,is this ;What are the important values which are to be desired in living? Are these values rooted in reality? And how can they be realized in our experience? The branch  of philosophy dealing with such questions are these is named AXIOLOGY . Axiology, then  is the subject area which tries to answer problems like these:

•How are values related to interest, desire, will, experience, and means-to-end?

•How do different kinds of value interrelate?

•Can the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental values be maintained?

•Are values ultimately rationally or objectively based?

•What is the difference between a matter of fact and a matter of value?

 (4) Most closely related to epistemology, is another branch of philosophy which deals with the exact relating of ideas.This area of philosophy is commonly referred to as the science of LOGIC.

Metaphysics (Ontology):

(2) Metaphysics or Ontology (theory of reality): the inquiry into what is real as opposed to what is appearance, either conceived as that which the methods of science presuppose, or that with which the methods of science are concerned; the inquiry into the first principles of nature; the study of the most fundamental generalizations as to what exists. : the study of what is really real. Metaphysics deals with the so-called first principles of the natural order and “the ultimate generalizations available to the human intellect.” Specifically, ontology seeks to indentify and establish the relationships between the categories, if any, of the types of existent things

Metaphysics-Meta means above; this is the study of the nature of things above physics.(What comes after Physics) Metaphysics covers the kinds of things most people probably think of if asked what philosophy covers e.g. those ‘big questions’, such as, is there God, why are we here, what is the ultimate nature of the universe, and so on. Another important area of metaphysics is the nature of substance, that is, what is the universe really made of,

Metaphysics (derived from the Greek words “ta meta ta physika biblia”) – meaning ‘the book that follows the physics book’. It was the way students referred to a specific book in the works of Aristotle, and it was a book on First Philosophy. (The assumption that the word means “beyond physics” is misleading) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the study of “first principles” and “being” (ontology). In other words, Metaphysics is the study of the most general aspects of reality, such as substance, identity, the nature of the mind, and free will.

: Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that goes beyond the realms of science. It is concerned with answering the questions about identity and the world. The name is derived from the Greek words, Meta which means beyond or after, and Physika which means physics. Aristotle, one of the most well-known philosophers, acknowledged Thales as the first known meta physician. The main branches of metaphysics are ontology, natural theology and universal science.

In Western philosophy, metaphysics has become the study of the fundamental nature of all reality — what is it, why is it, and how are we can understand it. Some treat metaphysics as the study of “higher” reality or the “invisible” nature behind everything, but that isn’t true. It is, instead, the study of all of reality, visible and invisible; and what constitutes reality, natural and supernatural. Because most of the debates between atheists and theists involve disagreements over the nature of reality and the existence of anything supernatural, the debates are often disagreements over metaphysics.

In popular parlance, metaphysics has become the label for the study of things which transcend the natural world — that is, things which supposedly exist separately from nature and which have a more intrinsic reality than our natural existence. This assigns a sense to the Greek prefix meta which it did not originally have, but words do change over time. As a result, the popular sense of metaphysics has been the study of any question about reality which cannot be answered by scientific observation and experimentation. For atheists, this sense of metaphysics is usually regarded as literally empty

Because atheists typically dismiss the existence of the supernatural, they may dismiss metaphysics as the pointless study of nothing. Because metaphysics is technically the study of all reality, and thus whether there is any supernatural element to it at all, in truth metaphysics is probably the most fundamental subject which irreligious atheists should focus on. Our ability to understand what reality is, what it is composed of, what “existence” means, etc., is fundamental to most of the disagreements between irreligious atheists and religious theists.

Some irreligious atheists, like logical positivists, have argued that the agenda of metaphysics is largely pointless and can’t accomplish anything. According to them, metaphysical statements cannot be either true or false — as a result, they don’t really carry any meaning and shouldn’t be given any serious consideration. There is some justification to this position, but it is unlikely to convince or impress religious theists for whom metaphysical claims constitute some of the most important parts of their lives. Thus the ability to address and critique such claims can be important.

The only thing all atheists have in common is disbelief in gods, so the only thing all atheist metaphysics will have in common is that reality doesn’t include any gods and isn’t divinely created. Despite that, most atheists in the West tend to adopt a materialistic perspective on reality. This means that they regard the nature of our reality and the universe as consisting of matter and energy. Everything is natural; nothing is supernatural. There are no supernatural beings, realms, or planes of existence. All cause and effect proceeds via natural laws.

Branches of Metaphysics:

Aristotle’s book on metaphysics was divided into three sections: ontology, theology, and universal science. Because of this, those are the three traditional branches of metaphysical inquiry.

Ontology is the branch of philosophy which deals with the study of the nature of reality: what is it, how many “realities” are there, what are its properties, etc. The word is derived from the Greek terms on, which means “reality” and logos, which means “study of.” Atheists generally believe that there is a single reality which is material and natural in nature.

Theology, of course, is the study of gods — does a god exist, what a god is, what a god wants, etc. Every religion has its own theology because its study of gods, if it includes any gods, will proceed from specific doctrines and traditions which vary from one religion to the next. Since atheists don’t accept the existence of any gods, they don’t accept that theology is the study of anything real. At most, it might be the study of what people think is real and atheist involvement in theology proceeds more from the perspective of a critical outsider rather than an involved member.

The branch of “universal science” is a bit harder to understand, but it involves the search for “first principles” — things like the origin of the universe, fundamental laws of logic and reasoning, etc. For theists, the answer to this is almost always “god” and, moreover, they tend to argue that there can be no other possible answer. Some even go far as to argue that the existence of things like logic and the universe constitute evidence of the existence of their god

Metaphysics  Theories of the nature of reality-

A .Cosmology. Theories of the nature of the cosmos and explanations of its origin and development. It deals with the origin and structure of the universe. It accepts the principles of science and attempts to find the principles of existence ,in whatever form They may take.

Some considerations in cosmology are

a . Causality. The nature of cause and effect relationship ,

 the nature of time and

 the nature of space..

There are two distinctive views in cosmology

a Evolutionism .universe evolved by itself.

b. .Creationism. The universe came to be as the result of the working of a Creative cause or Personality.

B.The nature of man as one important aspect of Reality.The problem of essential nature of the self. There are no particular terms but there are divergent answers which can be identified with general viewpoints.

a. The self is a soul, a spiritual being. A principle of idealism and spiritual realism.

b. The self is essentially the same as the body. A principle of naturalism and physical realism

c. The self is a social-vocal phenomenon. A principle held especially by experimentalists

2. The problem of the relation of body and mind.

a. Interactionism. Mind and body are 2 different kind of reality, each of which can affect the other.

B. Parallelism. Mind and body are two different kinds of reality which do not and cannot affect each other. But in some unknown way, every mental event is paralleled by a corresponding physical event.

c. Epiphenomenalism. Mind is merely a function of the brain, an overtone accompanying bodily activity. It is an onlooker at events, never influencing them.

d. Double Aspect Theory. Mind and body are two aspects of a fundamental reality whose nature is unknown.

e. Emergence Theory. Mind is something new which has been produced by Nature in the evolutionary process, neither identical with body, parallel to it, nor wholly dependent upon it.

f. Spiritualism. (A definition common to most idealists and spiritual realists.) Mind is more fundamental than body. The relation of body and mind is better described as body depending upon mind, as compared to the common-sense description according to which mind depends upon body.

3. The problem of freedom

a. Determinism. Man is not free. All of his actions are determined by forces greater than he is.

b. Free Will. Man has the power of choice and is capable of genuine initiative.

c. There is a third alternative proposed especially by the experimentalists, for which there is no name. Man is neither free nor determined; but he can and does delay some of his responses long enough to reconstruct a total response, not completely automatic but not free, which does give a new direction to subsequent activity.

C. Conception of and about God.

1.Atheism. There is no ultimate reality in or behind the cosmos which is Person or Spirit.

2.Deism. God exists quite apart from, and is disinterested in, the physical universe and human beings. But He created both and is the Author of all natural and moral law.

3.Pantheism. All is God and God is all. The cosmos and God are identical.

4.The conception of God as emerging, for which there is no common name. God is evolving with the cosmos; He is the end toward which it is moving, instead of the beginning from which it came.

5.Polytheism. Spiritual reality is plural rather than a unity. Thee is more than one God.

6.Theism. Ultimate reality is a personal God who is more than the cosmos but within whom and through the cosmos exists.

D. Teleology. Considerations as to whether or not there is purpose in the universe.

1.Philosophies holding that the world is what it is because of chance, accident, or                blind mechanism are no teleological.

2.Philosophies holding that there has been purpose in the universe from its beginning, and /or purpose can be discerned in history, are teleological philosophies.

3.It may be that a special case must be made of the experimentalists again on this particular question, as they do not find purpose inherent in the cosmos but by purposeful activity seek to impose purpose upon it.

E. Considerations relating to the constancy, or lack of it, in reality.

1.Absolutism. Fundamental reality is constant, unchanging, fixed, and dependable.

2.Relativism. Reality is a changing thing. So called realities are always relative to something or other.

F. Problems of quantity. Consideration of the number of ultimate realities, Apart from qualitative aspects.

1.Monism. Reality is unified. It is one. It is mind, or matter, or energy, or will but only one of these.

2.Dualism. Reality is two. Usually these realities are antithetical, as spirit and matter, good and evil. Commonly, the antithesis is weighted, so that one of the two is considered more important and more enduring than the other.

3.Pluralism. Reality is many. Minds, things, materials, energies, laws, processes, etc., all may be considered equally real and to some degree independent of each other.

G. Ontology. The meaning of existence as such. To exist, to have being, means what?

1.Space-time or Nature as identical with existence. To exist means to occupy time and space, to be matter or physical energy. (e.g., naturalism and physical realism).

2.Spirit or God as identical with existence. To exist means to be Mind or Spirit, or to be dependent upon Mind or Spirit. (Especially true of idealism.)

3.Existence as a category which is not valid. This is held by those, especially the pragmatists, who insist that everything is flux or change and there is nothing which fits into the category of existence in any ultimate sense.

Epistemology

Epistemology, from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (word/speech) is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge.

A branch  of philosophy dealing with the nature of knowledge .theory of knowledge: the inquiry into what knowledge is, what can be known, and what lies beyond our understanding; the investigation into the origin, structure, methods, and validity of justification and knowledge; the study of the interrelation of reason, truth, and experience. Epistemology investigates the origin, structure, methods, and integrity of knowledge. The study of knowledge. In particular, epistemology is the study of the nature, scope, and limits of human knowledge

It deals with the definition of knowledge and its scope and limitations. It translates from Greek to mean ‘theory of knowledge’. It questions the meaning of knowledge, how we obtain knowledge, how much do we know and how do we have this knowledge? Some of the famous epistemologists are Descartes, Kant and Hume.

Kinds of knowledge

As Epistemology is the investigation into the grounds and nature of knowledge itself. The study of epistemology focuses on our means for acquiring knowledge and how we can differentiate between truth and falsehood. knowledge can be acquired

 Priori it is possible to know things before we have had experiences — this is known as a priori knowledge because priori means before. It includes  Independent of the knowledge of experience. Belonging to the mind prior to experience. This term is usually applied to principles or judgments whose validity is independent of sense data Knowledge which is self-evident. Principles which, when once understood, are recognized to  be true and do not require proof through observation, experience, or experiment.)

  Posteriori: we can only know things after we have had the relevant experience — this is labeled a posteriori knowledge because posteriori means “after.”It includes  (Inductive thinking beginning with the data of experience opposed to a priori)Knowledge which is based upon experience and observation

Experimental knowledge- It is something to be put to work in experience as a function which carries experience forward satisfactorily.

The Theories of the nature of knowledge-The theories deals with the possibility of knowledge.

Agnosticism is the doctrine that holds tha one can not know the existence of anything beyond the phenomenon of experience, it may mean no more  than the suspension of judgment on ultimate questions because of insufficient evidence, or it may constitute a rejection of traditional religious tenets. The position that conclusive knowledge of ultimate reality is an impossibility.

Skepticism- Philosophical doubting of knowledge claims in various areas ,a challenge to accepted views in science ,morals, and religion. A questioning attitude toward the possibility of having any knowledge.

The affirmation of knowledge. The position that true knowledge of ultimate reality is possible,

The affirmation of functional knowledge. The position that knowledge is always fractional, never total , and functions in a present field or situation where it is needed, and that we can appropriate such fractional and functional knowledge.

The Instruments of Knowledge

Epistemology is important because it is fundamental to how we think. Without some means of understanding how we acquire knowledge, how we rely upon our senses, and how we develop concepts in our minds, we have no coherent path for our thinking. A sound epistemology is necessary for the existence of sound thinking and reasoning — this is why so much philosophical literature can involve seemingly arcane discussions about the nature of knowledge.

Empiricism: knowledge is obtained through experience.The position, or sense-perceptual experience, is the medium through which knowledge is gained. Empiricism, , is more uniform in the sense that it denies that any form of rationalism is true or possible. Empiricists may disagree on just how we acquire knowledge through experience and in what sense our experiences give us access to outside reality; nevertheless, they all agree that knowledge about reality requires experience and interaction with reality

Rationalism: knowledge can be acquired through the use of reason.The position that reason is the chief source of knowledge. Rationalism is not a uniform position. Some rationalists will simply argue that some truths about reality can be discovered through pure reason and thought (examples include truths of mathematics, geometry and sometimes morality) while other truths do require experience. Other rationalists will go further and argue that all truths about reality must in some way be acquired through reason, normally because our sense organs are unable to directly experience outside reality at all.

Intuitionism-A position that knowledge is gained through immediate insight and awareness .Direct or immediate knowledge of self , others ,or data.An internal, personal phenomenon.

Autoritarionism-The position that much important knowledge is certified to us by an indisputable authority

Reveleation –T he position that  God presently reveals himself in the holy books or holy places. A communication of God,s will to man from some external source

 Logic: Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, but coming to mean thought or reason) is most often said to be the study of arguments, although the exact definition of logic is a matter of controversy amongst philosophers (see below). However the subject is grounded, the task of the logician is the same: to advance an account of valid and fallacious inference to allow one to distinguish good from bad arguments.

 The study of the proper methods of thinking and reasoning. Logic languages, like Predicate Logic, promise to produce arguments which, if the premises are true, can only lead to true conclusions. Logic is slightly different than the other branches as it aims to suggest the correct ways of studying philosophy in general.

Logic is the science of exact thought. The .The systematic treatment of the relation of ideas. A study of methods distinguishing valid thinking   which is fallacious. : Among the branches of philosophy, logic is concerned with the various forms of reasoning and arriving at genuine conclusions. It includes the system of statements and arguments. It is now divided into mathematical logic and philosophical logic. It tries to avoid the imaginary or assumptions without real logical proof.
A.Induction. Reasoning from particulars to a general conclusion.

B.Deduction. Reasoning from general principle to particulars included within the scope of that principle.

C.The syllogism. A form in which to cast deductive reasoning. It is comprised of three propositions : the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion.

D.Experimental reasoning or problem-solving. A form of reasoning, largely inductive but using deduction as well, which begins wigh a  problem observes all the data relating to the problem, formulates hypotheses and tests them to reach a workable solution of the problem.

E.Dialectic. A method of reasoning of reasoning in which the conflict or contrast of ideas is utilized as a means of detecting the truth. In hegel’s formulation of it there are three stages: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

Axiology: the Study of Value: the study of value; the investigation of its nature, criteria, and metaphysical status. More often than not, the term “value theory” is used instead of “axiology” in contemporary discussions even though the term “theory of value” is used with respect to the value or price of goods and services in economics. . The general theory of value. The nature of values, the different kinds of value, specific values worthy of possession

 Axiology (theory of value): the inquiry into the nature, criteria, and metaphysical status of value. Axiology, in turn, is divided into two main parts: ethics and æsthetics.

Although the term “axiology” is not widely used outside of philosophy, the problems of axiology include

 (1) how values are experienced,

 (2) the kinds of value,

(3) the standards of value, and

 (4) in what sense values can be said to exist.

 A. The nature of value.

1.The interest theory. Values depend upon the interest of the person who enjoys them. Strictly speaking, they do not exist but are supported by the interest of the value.

2.The existence theory. Values have an existence in their own right which is independent of the valuer and his interest. Values are not qualities or essences without foundation in existence; they are essence plus existence.

3.The experimentalist theory. That is of value which yields a greater sense of happiness in the present and at the same time opens the way to further goods in future experiences.

4.The part whole theory. The key to realizing and enjoying value is the effective relating of parts to wholes.

B. Realms of value.

   1. Ethics. : Ethics is a general term for what is often described as the “science (study) of morality”. In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is “good” or “right.” The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy.

It is concerned with questions on morality and values and how they apply to various situations. It can be divided into the branches of meta-ethics, normative and applied ethics. Ethics seeks to understand the basis of morals, how they develop and how they are and should be followed. Famous works on ethics are by philosophers as early as Plato, Aristotle, Kant and Nietzsche.

The study of values in human behavior or the study of moral problems: e.g., (1) the rightness and wrongness of actions, (2) the kinds of things which are good or desirable, and (3) whether actions are blameworthy or praiseworthy The nature of good and evil. The problems of conduct and ultimate objectives.

  a. The worth of living.

1.Optimism. Existence is good. Life is worth living. Our outlook can be hopeful.

2.Pessimism. Existence is evil. Life is not worth the struggle; we should escape it by some means.

3.Meliorism. Conclusions as to the goodness or evil of existence cannot be made final. Human effort may improve the human situation. The final end cannot be assured, but we must face life, not escape it, applying all the effort and resource we can command.

B. The highest good or summum bonum. The end, aim, or objective of living which is above all other ends. In absolutist philosophies it is the ultimate end which by its nature cannot be a means to another end. 

1.Hedonism. The highest good is pleasure. Hedonist ranging from the intense pleasure of the moment to highly refined and enduring pleasure or contentment. Utilitarianism is a form of hedonism having society as its frame of reference. According to it, the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the prime objective.

2.Perfectionism. The highest good is the perfection of the self, or self-realization. Perfection of the self, or self realization. Perfectionism may also have its social frame of reference, envisioning  and ideal social order as the ultimate objective of society.

C. The criteria of conduct. From one’s conception of the highest good there follow logically certain practical principles for everyday living. Some examples are

1.Kant’s maxim: act only on those principles which you are willing should become universal moral laws.

2.Spencer’s principal: action to be right must be conducive to self-preservation.

3.Dewey’s principle: discover the probable consequences of what you consider doing, by going through an imaginative rehearsal of the possibilities.

4.The religious principle: obey the will of God; commit yourself completely to the fulfillment of God’s purpose for yourself and the world.

D. The motivation of conduct. The kind and scope of the interests which guide conduct.

1.Egoism. The interests of self should be served by an individual’s actions.

2.Altruism. The interest of other or of the social group should be served by an individual’s actions. One realizes his won fullest selfhood in seeking the best interests of others.

3.Religious Values. The kind, nature, and worth of values to be possessed in worship, religious experience, and religious service.

4.Educational Values. The kind, nature and worth of values inherent in the educative process.

5.Social Values. The kind, nature and worth of values only realized in community and in the individual’s relation to society. Some more specific kinds of social values are the political and the economic

6.Utilitarian Values. The kind, nature, and worth of values to be realized in harmonious adjustment to or efficient control of the forces of the physical environment.

There are two main subdivisions of axiology: ethics and æsthetics.. Each of these subdivisions are briefly characterized below.

Aesthetics:The philosophy of art. Concerned with questions like why do we find certain things beautiful, what makes things great art, so on. the study of value in the arts or the inquiry into feelings, judgments, or standards of beauty and related concepts. Philosophy of art is concerned with judgments of sense, taste, and emotion.

Aesthetics deals with sense, perception and appreciation of beauty. It broadly includes everything to do with appreciating of art, culture and nature. It also examines how the perception of beauty is determined by taste and aesthetic judgment. The practice of defining, criticizing and appreciating art and art forms is based on aesthetics.

Aesthetics involves the conceptual problems associated with the describing the relationships among our feelings and senses with respect to the experience of art and nature .It is the inquiry into feelings, judgments, or standards concerning the nature of beauty and related concepts such as the tragic, the sublime, or the moving—especially in the arts; the analysis of the values of sensory experience and the associated feelings or attitudes in art and nature; the theories developed in les beaux arts.

Actually Aesthetics deals with the nature of the values which  are found in the feeling aspects of experience. The conscious search for the principles governing the creation and appreciation of beautiful things.

 (b) Ethics: This is probably the most self-explanatory of all the branches. Concerned with such things as what is good/evil, is there such a thing as objective morals or are they created by us, or some other being, how we should live our lives, and so on.. Ethics involves the theoretical study of the moral valuation of human action—it’s not just concerned with the study of principles of conduct .It is the inquiry into the nature and concepts of morality, including the important problems of good, right, duty, virtue, and choice; the study of the principles of living well and doing well as a human being; the moral principles implicit in mores, religion, or philosophy.

 References

Brameld, Theodore, Philosophies of Education in Cultural Perspective. New York: Dryden Press, 1956.

Butler, J.Donald, Four Philosophies and Their Practice in Education and Religion. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1957.

Cotter, A.C. ABC of Scholastic Philosophy. Weston, Massachusetts: Weston College Press, 1949

McGucken, William, “The Philosophy of Catholic Education,” Philosophies of Education. National Society for the Study of Education, Forty-first yearbook, Part I Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1942.

Maritain, Jacques,” Thomist views on Education,” Modern Philosophies of Education. National Society for the Study of Education, Fifty-Fourth yearbook, Part I. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955.

Morries, Van Cleve, Philosophy and the American School. Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1961.  

Weber, Christian O., Basic Philosophies of Education. New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1960. This book, especially in chapters 11-14,.

Wild, John, “Education and human Society : A Realistic View,” Modern Philosophies and Education. National Society for the study of Education, Fifty-fourth Yearbook, Part I. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1955.

Broudy, Harry S., Building a Philosophy of Education. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1961..

.Frank Thilly, “A History of philosophy”, Central Publishing House, Allahabad.

John Dewey, “Reconstruction in Philosophy,” p-38. London, University of London Press Ltd. 1921.

Rusk, R.R., “Philosophical Basis of Education” p-68, footnote, London, University of London Press, 1956.

A common experience among new teachers is learning how to lecture. Lecturing is a skill, a strategy, and a practice. As a skill, lecturing is learned over time.. Lecturing is a strategy teachers use when they want to efficiently cover a great deal of content. In addition, it is a practice that has shared meanings, practical knowledge, and language

 

 The lecture method is the most widely used form of presentation. Lectures are used for introduction of new subjects, summarizing ideas, showing relationships between theory and practice, and reemphasizing main points.

Lecturing is probably the most widely used formal educational method in the world, Bligh defines lecturing as “more or less continuous exposition[s] by a speaker who wants the audience to learn something The “lecture” has its etymological roots in the Latin participle lectus (to read), it has been suggested that the academic lecture developed prior to the printing press as “the only way that the knowledge stored in books could be transmitted to a large number of students.”

Accordingly  the lecture was established formally centuries ago as a teaching process that began with a literal reading of important passages from the text by the master, followed by the master’s interpretation of the text. Students were expected to sit, listen and take notes. The lecture is the formal presentation of content by the educator (as subject matter expert) for the subsequent learning. Ruyle (1995) describes the lecture simply as an oral pre-sanitation of instructional material

It is oldest teaching method given by philosophy of idealism. As used in education, the lecture method refers to the teaching procedure involved in clarification or explanation of the students of some major idea. This method lays emphasis on the penetration of contents. Teacher is more active and students are passive but he also uses question answers to keep them attentive in the class. It is used to motivate, clarify, expand and review the information.

The lecture is defined as the method of instruction in which the instructor has full responsibility for presenting facts and principles orally It is  an oral presentation of information by the teacher . It is the method of relaying factual information which includes principles, concepts, ideas and all THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE about a given topic. In a lecture the teacher  tells, explains, describes or relates whatever information the students are required to learn through listening and understanding. It is therefore teacher-centered. The teacher is very active, doing all the talking. Students on the other hand are very inactive, doing all the listening.

The lecture in its many forms is the most commonly used method for transferring information in education. There are, however, serious questions regarding the effectiveness of the traditional lecture approach.  There presently are many calls to move away from the traditional lecture to interactive computer learning systems that allow students access to information when and where they need it While this shift to “just in time” information provided by computer is occurring, there is, and will continue to be, a need for educators who are prepared to deliver lectures Majority of college classrooms use some form of the lecture method to teach their  students Although the usefulness of other teaching strategies is being widely examined today, the lecture still remains an important way to communicate information.

The lecture method of instruction is recommended for trainees with very little knowledge or limited background knowledge on the topic. It is also useful for presenting an organized body of new information to the learner. To be effective in promoting learning, the lecture must involve some discussions and, question and answer period to allow trainees to be involved actively.

A lecture can be used to provide a broad-brush overview or introduction of a topic, particularly where the educational goal is for the learner to acquire a background familiarity with the subject, as opposed to a working knowledge. For learners who have a general knowledge of a topic, a lecture can provide an explication of the material, a cognitive framework for organizing the material, or a re-structuring of the material to make it more relevant to the situation at hand The primary purpose of the lecture is to transfer information from the teacher to the student. Before developing the content of the lecture, it is a good idea to clearly state the purpose of the lecture

Structuring presentation—

Effective presenters provide roadmaps for their speech. They design and present lectures that are well-organized and easy to follow. There’s an “attention grabber” for the opening, a preview of what is ahead and three or four chunks of information that make-up the body of the presentation, and a closing that summarizes important content, information and key messages

Structure your lectures to help students retain the most important material. . Plan your classes so that the main points come at a time when students are most attentive. Structure them to include: Attention-getting introduction Brief overview of main points to be covered Quick statement of background or context Detailed explanation of no more than three major points, the most important first, with a change of pace every ten or fifteen minute Concluding summary of main points to reinforce key themes

Structure the lecture to suit your audience and the subject matter. Consider the difficulty of the material and students’ level of ability as you make decisions about the amount of information to cover, the amount of detail, and the number of examples you present. Structure the lecture to suit your students  and the subject matter. Consider the difficulty of the material and students’ level of ability and the entering behavior as you make decisions about the amount of information to cover,  Unfamiliar technical words should be introduced cautiously. New terminologies should be defined and explained and examples given

Focus the message.  In the words of Howard Gardner (2000), “In a lecture, less is more.” It is very easy to present too much information, which quickly saturates students, causing them to drop into a passive-listening role. They may understand what is being said, but they are not retaining it. In fact, some research suggests that students can only remember five to nine major points from a lecture.

Structure your lectures to help students retain the most important material. . Identify what you most want your students to remember about the topic.Prepare a one-page sketch of the lecture Structure the lecture in outline form and flesh it out with examples and illustrations; identify your key points Specify the main topic or topics. Free associate words, facts, ideas, and questions as they come to you. State a working title Research shows that students’ retention is greatest at the beginning of a fifty-minute class, decreases to low levels as the period wears on, and then increases slightly in anticipation of the end (Ericksen, 1978). Plan your classes so that the main points come at a time when students are most attentive.

Provide a logical progression for the material. Provide a logical progression for the material. Some lectures lend themselves to a chronological or sequential approach. At other times, you can move from the general principle to specific instances, build up from the parts to the whole, trace one idea across time or space, describe a problem and then illustrate its solution, Decide what content to cover Organize the topics in a meaningful sequence. Like :Topical ,Causal ,Sequential, Symbolic or graphic, Problem-solution

 Some lectures lend themselves to a chronological or sequential approach. At other times, you can move from the general principle to specific instances, build up from the parts to the whole, trace one idea across time or space, describe a problem and then illustrate its solution, or announce your thesis and then step back to provide evidence for your argument.

Design your lectures in ten- or fifteen-minutes blocks. Each block should cover a single point with examples and end with a brief summary and transition to the next section. If you find yourself running out of time, cut an entire block or shorten the middle section of a block rather than rush the summary.

Budget time for questions. Whether or not you formally open the floor for questions, leave time for students to ask you to repeat material or to supply additional explanations. Some faculty ask for students’ questions at the beginning of class and list these on the board to be answered during the hour

Begin and end with a summary statement. Continuity and closure are important: students need to see how each new topic relates to what they have already learned as well as to what they will be learning in the coming weeks. To bring your points home, use different words and examples in your opening and closing summaries.

Experiment with different formats for your lecture notes. Some formats are more suited to certain subjects and disciplines than others for example An outline is especially useful in organizing a talk and providing an overview of the general structure of subordinate points and transitions.A list of major points is closer to extemporaneous speech than a detailed outline; this format is appropriate for a speaker who knows the material well. A tree diagram (such as a flowchart or network) provides a system of pathways through important points with optional stopovers, tangents, useful illustrations, or examples.

Prepare your notes to aid your delivery. If you are writing an outline of key words or phrases, 5″ x 8″ index cards are easier to use than smaller cards or sheets of paper. Color code your notes to highlight difficult points, distinctions between major examples, and important information. Include notations that indicate times to pause, ask questions, raise your voice, and so on. Write in the margin, “Put this on the board” or “Have students jot down a response at their seats” or Examples boxed in red could mean “Include this if students seem uncertain about my point.” . Notes can be prepared as prompts or reminders of key points, but they must be legible at the distance and under the lighting conditions under which the lecture will be given

Write down vivid examples.  facts and formulas for easy reference. Within the body of your lecture notes or on a separate sheet of paper, copy out all the key facts, quotations, computations, or complex analyses. Clear, straightforward, memorable examples reinforce the points you are trying to make. Experienced faculty recommend that you give special attention to preparing examples, illustrations, and demonstrations – more than you might need, to be able to respond to students’ confusions or questions Research shows that an important characteristic of an effective teacher is the ability to take difficult concepts and transform them in ways that students can understand, through the use of metaphors, analogies, and examples

Use notes wisely Notes used wisely can ensure accuracy, jog the memory, and dispel the fear of forgetting. They are essential for reporting complicated information. For an instructor who tends to ramble, notes are a must because they help keep the lecture on track. The instructor who requires notes should use them sparingly and unobtrusively, but at the same time should make no effort to hide them from the students. Notes may be written legibly or typed, and they should be placed where they can be consulted easily, or held, if the instructor walks about the room.

Prepare your lecture for the ear, not the eye. Oral presentations are very different from written presentations. When students are listening to you speak, they cannot go back and “reread” a troublesome sentence or look up a difficult word in the dictionary.

Rehearse your lecture Carefully prepare your lectures. Thorough preparation can prevent last-minute headaches.. After completing the preliminary planning and writing of the lesson plan, the instructor should rehearse the lecture to build self-confidence. Rehearsals, or dry runs, help smooth out the mechanics of using notes, visual aids, and other instructional devices. If possible, the instructor should have another knowledgeable person, preferably another instructor, observe the practice sessions and act as a critic. This critique will help the instructor judge the adequacy of supporting materials and visual aids, as well as the presentation

 A run-through will give you a sense of how comfortable you are with the material and the length of your presentation. To save time, practice only the most difficult sections, the opening and the ending.

Presentation Tips

                 Minimize nervousness. A certain amount of nervousness is normal, especially right before you begin to speak. To relax yourself, take deep breaths before you begin or tighten and then release the muscles of your body from your toes to your jaw Once you are under way your nervousness will lessen. Avoid eating a big meal before the lecture. Not only will a full stomach make you drowsy, but it makes it more difficult to move around the room with energy.

•             Arrive early to make sure that everything is ready before the first student arrives.

•             Make sure all of the media equipment is working.

•             Locate and check the lighting and temperature controls.

•             Decide where the lecture notes will be placed (e.g., on a lectern, desk, table) when they are not being held.

•             Have a glass of water available during the lecture.

•             . Look over your lecture notes one last time.

Visit the classroom before the first meeting The  size and shape of the lecture room also influence the design and delivery of the lecture.

 Notice the instructor’s area, placement of light switches, chalkboards, and other details. Make arrangements for whatever instructional equipment you will need: overhead projector, microphone, slide projector. When you visit the classroom, stand where you will lecture, practice using the equipment, and write on the board. Check whether your board work can be seen from the back of the room

•             A room with tables arranged in a U-shape and chairs for 20 students is an ideal format for small group lectures. It allows the presenter to interact extensively with the students and use a variety of small group methods and media.

•             A large room with 100 chairs arranged theater-style with an aisle down the middle makes it possible for the lecturer to move up and down the aisle to interact with students. The lecturer can ask students to turn their chairs around to form small groups for discussion.

•             A lecture hall with a sloped floor and 200 seats firmly anchored in place makes it difficult to divide students into small groups. In this situation, one of the few alternatives is to ask students to turn to their neighbor to discuss a question, react to a slide or solve a problem being shown on the projection screen.

The final logistical consideration is the media equipment available. Most lecture halls are designed to accommodate-date the use of slides, overhead transparencies, video and computer-based projections. In order to develop an effective lecture, the educator must design and use a variety of media effectively

 Technology-Enhanced Classrooms.  Many classrooms are equipped with technology that will help you add other dimensions to your lecture (TECs) allow you to use computer consoles, DVD/VHS players, personal response systems, wireless microphones, and other technologies to enhance your teaching. You can display your teaching files (PowerPoint, sound files, images), and your course site or other websites on an LCD projector. Using the “T: Drive” from your home or office allows you to access your files without carrying around a disk or laptop. You need only create (or renew) your TEC account and reserve one of the many TECs available across campus to use this resource. Remember to practice with the technology prior to your class meeting and be sure to arrive early enough to get the equipment up and running before class starts. Along these lines of minimizing other distractions, the lecturer should be familiar with the classroom, know how to use any audio-visual support technology, and have a backup plan in case of equipment failures

Delivering a Lecture

Lecturing is not simply a matter of standing in front of a class and reciting what you know The classroom lecture is a special form of communication in which voice, gesture, movement, facial expression, and eye contact can either complement or detract from the content. No matter what your topic, your delivery and manner of speaking immeasurably influence your students’ attentiveness and learning

Lectures may include several different types of delivery. However, depending on the requirements of any particular circumstances, a lecture is usually delivered in one of four ways: Reading from a typed or written manuscript,  Reciting memorized material without the aid of a manuscript, Speaking extemporaneously from an outline, and  Speaking impromptu without preparation.

The teaching lecture is probably best delivered in an extemporaneous manner. The instructor speaks from a mental or written outline, but does not read or memorize the material to be presented. Because the exact words to express an idea are spontaneous, the lecture is more personalized than one that is read or spoken from memory.

Learn how not to read your lectures. At its best, lecturing resembles a natural, spontaneous conversation between instructor and student, with each student feeling as though the instructor is speaking to an audience of one. If you read your lectures, however, there will be no dialogue and the lecture will seem formal, stilted, and distant.

Avoid a “cold start.” Go to class a little early and talk informally with students. Or walk in the door with students and engage them in conversation. Using your voice informally before you begin to lecture helps keep your tone conversational. . Make the presentation appear to be interactive, engaging and a discussion. Provide individual reflection/think time, encourage pairing-up with another participants to exchange ideas and then share perceptions with larger audience Ask rhetorical questions Survey the audience with powerful trigger questions Provide a partial outline of the lecture to help align audience thinking and tracking the presentation Feed forward structuring message; Grab students’ attention with your opening. Open with a provocative question, startling statement, unusual analogy, striking example, personal anecdote, dramatic contrast, powerful quote, short questionnaire, demonstration, or mention of a recent news event.  Any dramatic technique loses impact upon repetition. So  Vary your opening

Begin by writing out the main theme and why students should learn about it. Identify what you most want your students to remember about the topic. It is better to teach two or three major points well than to inundate students with information they are unlikely to rememberAnnounce the objectives for the class. Tell your students what you expect to accomplish during the class, or list your objectives on the board. Place the day’s lecture in context by linking it to material from earlier session. The purpose should describe in general terms what the students will learn during the lecture. It usually is not written in measurable terms. By contrast, an objective is a precise and measurable statement describing what the student will learn by attending the lecture. Depending on the design of the lecture, there may be a purpose, objective or both. In some situations the objective will also describe the criteria students must meet in order to demonstrate they have learned the content

Avoid lecturing verbatim from a script. If you simply read from a prepared text, you will find yourself disengaged from the material and your students will feel disengaged as well Moreover, reading prevents you from maintaining eye contact with students, and it casts your voice down toward your notes instead of up and out toward the lecture hall. Writing out lectures is also extremely time-consuming. If you do feel the need to write out your lectures, reduce the completed text to a brief outline of key words and phrases. Lecture from this outline – you will naturally produce sentences more for the ear than for the eye, thereby making it easier for students to grasp the material.

During class, think about and watch your audience-your students. Focus on your students as if you were talking to a small group. One-on-one eye contact will increase students’ attentiveness and help you observe their facial expressions and physical movements for signs that you are speaking too slowly or too quickly, or need to provide another example. A common mistake lecturers make is to become so absorbed in the material that they fail to notice whether students are paying attention.

Since the instructor talks directly to the students, their reactions can be readily observed, and adjustments can be made based on their responses. The instructor has better control of the situation, can change the approach to meet any contingency, and can tailor each idea to suit the responses of the students. For example, if the instructor realizes from puzzled expressions that a number of students fail to grasp an idea, that point can be elaborated on until the reactions of the students indicate they understand. The extemporaneous presentation reflects the instructor’s personal enthusiasm and is more flexible than other methods. For these reasons, it is likely to hold the interest of the students.

Vary your delivery to keep students’ attention. Keeping students’ attention is among the most important facets of helping them To extend students’ attention spans Ask questions at strategic points or ask for comments or opinions about the subject. Play devil’s advocate or invite students to challenge your point of view Have students solve a problem individually, or have them break into pairs or small four-person groups to answer a question or discuss a topic.Introduce visual aids: slides, charts, graphs, videotapes, and films.

Make the organization of your lecture explicit. Put an outline on the board before you begin, outline the development of ideas as they occur, or give students a handout of your major points or topics. Outlines help students focus on the progression of the material and also help them take better notes. If their attention does wander, students can more readily catch up with the lecture if they have an outline in front of them• Tell them what you are going to tell them establishes an expectation of what is coming   next, and allows the learner to get into the    proper frame of mind. One way to do this is to   remind the students of the learning •

Convey your own enthusiasm for the material. Think back to what inspired you as an undergraduate or to the reasons you entered the field you are in. Even if you have little interest in a particular topic, try to come up with a new way of looking at it and do what you can to stimulate students’ enthusiasm. If you appear bored with the topic, students will quickly lose interest.

Be conversational. Use conversational inflections and tones, varying your pitch just as you do in ordinary conversation. If you focus on the meaning of what you are saying, you’ll instinctively become more expressive. Choose informal language, and try to be natural and direct. Establish rapport with your students. Warmth and rapport have a positive effect on any audience. Students will feel more engaged in the class if the opening minutes are personal, direct, and conversational.

Use verbal support Besides the obvious requirements of voice, platform mannerisms, sincerity, eye contact, and other communicative skills, the lecture, because of its unique instructor responsibilities, requires skillful choice of support material. The strength or weakness of your lesson depends on your teaching effectiveness. There are a number of techniques you can use to increase your effectiveness. The following types of verbal support will make the lesson more interesting and understandable.

A comparison is used to bridge the known and the unknown clarify a new subject idea, or situation by showing how it resembles a familiar subject. Comparison may be factual or imaginary. An example of an imaginary comparison is called an analogy. An analogy uses a story or incident with a point that parallels the point that the communicator wants to make. The analogy does not prove a point, but helps to dramatize it.

Use Statistics and Testimonies    Statistics and Testimonies can be used to clarify or amplify a point, but must be used sparingly and wisely. They should be in terms that are easily understood, and unless there is good reason for giving exact statistical figures, round numbers should be used. Honesty with a statistic is essential.Testimonies can give the trainee an example of a real life situation. The testimony can relate trainees’ thoughts or ideas with what actually happened with the instructor.

 Story Telling. Your experience or others experience related by means of a story is a form of evidence because it gives the listener tangible evidence and illustrates the viewpoint of the speaker. The communicator’s personal self-disclosure and involvement through stories brings the evidence to life; first-person life. Story telling helps make your presentation believable and conveys your human side. Incorporate anecdotes and stories into your lecture. When you are in a storytelling mode, your voice becomes conversational and your face more expressive, and students tend to listen more closely. Use anecdotes to illustrate your key points.

Maintain eye contact with the class. Look directly at your students one at a time to give them a sense that you are speaking to each individual. Look at a student for three to five seconds – a longer glance will make most students uncomfortable. Beware of aimless scanning or swinging your head back and forth. Mentally divide the lecture hall into three to five sections, and address comments, questions, and eye contact to each section during the course of your lecture, beginning in the center rear of the room. Pick out friendly faces, but also try to include no listeners. However, don’t waste your time trying to win over the uninterested; concentrate on the attentive. If real eye contact upsets your concentration, look between two students or look at foreheads.

 Use Suitable Language In the teaching lecture, simple rather than complex words should be used whenever possible. Picturesque slang and free-and-easy colloquialisms, if they suit the subject, can add variety and vividness to a teaching lecture. The teacher should not, however, use substandard English. Errors in grammar and vulgarisms detract from an instructor’s dignity and reflect upon the intelligence of the students.

If the subject matter includes technical terms, the instructor should clearly define each one so that no student is in doubt about its meaning. Whenever possible, the instructor should use specific rather than general words.

Another way the instructor can add life to the lecture is to vary his or her tone of voice and pace of speaking. In addition, using sentences of different length helps, since consistent use of short sentences results in a choppy style. Unless long sentences are carefully constructed, they are difficult to follow and can easily become tangled. To ensure clarity and variety, the instructor should normally use sentences of short and medium length.

Use concrete, simple, colorful language. Use first-person and second-person pronouns (I, we, you). Choose dramatic adjectives, for example, “vital point” rather than “main point” or “provocative issue” rather than “next issue.” Eliminate jargon, empty words, and unnecessary qualifiers (“little bit,” “sort of,” “kind of”).. Communicate in audience language. Often presenters out of habit, comfort and sometimes to demonstrate their expertise use professional jargon and lose the audience. Do not assume that listeners understand complex technical language. If you need to use technical language, provide definitions or a glossary handout to facilitate communication. In order to facilitate impact and effectiveness of presentations it is important to keep your language clear, concise and compelling. Remember your goal is to connect with the audience and impart information and ideas listeners can use to their benefit.

 Use the make me feel important (MMFI) rule to find unique ways to connect with the audience. Create a psychological safe climate; build closeness and openness by using people’s names, nodding your head, looking people in the eye with one thought rather than scanning the room. Laugh at yourself when you make a mistake. If you mispronounce a word or drop your notes, your ability to see the humor of the situation will put everyone at ease. Don’t let your confidence be shaken by minor mistakes.

Vary the pace at which you speak. Students need time to assimilate new information and to take notes, but if you speak too slowly, they may become bored. Try to vary the pace to suit your own style, your message, and your audience. For example, deliver important points more deliberately than anecdotal examples. If you tend to speak quickly, try to repeat your major points so that students can absorb them. Vary your voice. Consider the pitch, volume, duration of words, intonation, and the intensity of your voice. Experiment with vocal techniques by reading aloud describes a series of voice exercises to improve projection, articulation, and tonal quality

Loudness Too soft and the audience cannot hear you. Too loud and they will not want to. Of the two, too loud is preferable, but somewhere in the middle is “just right.”Rate Speaking too fast does not give students time to digest what is being said. Too slow puts them to sleep. Research has shown that students attribute more intelligence to someone who talks at a more rapid pace; yet, it does not say how much they learn.

Intonation , Intonation is the range of your voice. Some speakers are monotone, which tends to be boring. On the other hand, some speakers are too histrionic, which tends to become tiresome, e.g., a Bob Barker voice. A natural speaking voice with a good range of inflection works best. Stress and inflection are related to intonation but they are not the same. Stress is how you emphasize an important point or issue, which can be applied by slowing speech, stopping, spelling a word out, repeating a phrase. Use stress to highlight important detail, but used too much, it becomes tiresome.

Project your voice or use a microphone. Ask students whether they can hear you, or have a graduate student instructor sit in the back corner to monitor the clarity and volume of your speaking voice. Try not to let the volume of your voice drop at the ends of sentences. When using a microphone, speak in a normal voice and do not lean into the microphone.

Pause. The pause is one of the most critical tools of public speaking. It is an important device for gaining attention. Pauses can be used as punctuation -to mark a thought, sentence, or paragraph – and also for emphasis, before or after a key concept or idea. If you suddenly stop in midsentence, students will look up from their notes to see what happened. Planned pauses also give you and your audience a short rest. Some faculty take a sip of coffee or water after they say something they want students to stop and think about. Other faculty deliberately pause, announce, “This is the really important consideration,” and pause again before proceeding. Watch out for vocalized pauses. Try to avoid saying “um,” “well,” “you know,” “OK,” or “so.” Silent pauses are more effective. Pauses are used both to stress a point and to allow students time to think and catch up. A pause can be used to gain attention, for transition to a new event, to give students time to catch up with an illustration, or to take notes. 

Don’t plan to lecture for a full period. The average student’s attention span is between ten and twenty minute. After that, students have difficulty concentrating on the speaker. For each lecture, plan to change the pace every fifteen minutes or so to relieve the monotony and recapture students’ interest. For example: ask students to solve a problem at their seats or in groups of two or three, give a demonstration, use an audiovisual aid, or tell a story or anecdote.

Budget your own time carefully. Teaching a large lecture class takes a great deal of time and energy Set up weekly work schedules for yourself so that you are prepared for the onslaught of midterms and finals. Find ways to scale back other obligations, if you can, so that you have time to deal with the complexities of teaching such courses Keep track of time. How long is it taking you to cover each point? Where should you be in the material halfway through the class period? If you seem to be running out of time, what will you leave out? If time runs short, do not speed up to cover everything in your notes. Have some advance plan of what to omit: If I don’t have fifteen minutes left when I reach this heading, I’ll give only one example and distribute a handout with the other examples

Use  Body Gestures Two extremes of gesturing are: none and wild. Gestures and movement convey a sense of comfort with the material. They can be used along with vocal variation to stress the importance of something, or simply to point out an important part of a visual.

Adopt a natural speaking stance. Breathe normally. Normal breathing prevents vocal strain that affects the pitch and quality of your speech. Keep your shoulders relaxed, your neck loose, your eyes fully open, and your jaw relaxed. Balance yourself on both feet with your toes and heels on the ground. Beware of shifting movements or unconscious rocking to and from. Keep your knees slightly relaxed. Shoulders should be down and loose, with elbows cocked, and your hands at waist level. If you use a lectern, don’t grip the sides, elbows rigid; instead, keep your elbows bent and lightly rest your hands on the lectern, ready for purposeful gestures.

Use facial expressions to convey emotions. If you appear enthusiastic and eager to tell students what you know they are more likely to be enthusiastic about hearing it. Use your facial features: eyes, eyebrows, forehead, mouth, and jaw to convey enthusiasm, conviction, curiosity, and thoughtfulness

Use Movement to emphasize an important point or to lead into a new topic  Two extremes of movement are: clutching the podium and pacing the room. Both are distracting to the communication process. Movement should be a natural flow, from the podium to the board to the audience. Another consideration is your position in the room. Changing location causes the students to refocus their attention, and can keep students alert. Some faculty move to one side of the table or the lectern when presenting one side of an argument and to the other side when presenting the opposing view This movement not only captures students’ attention but reinforces the Opposition between the two points of view .

Use movements to hold Students’ attention. A moving object is more compelling than a static one. Occasionally, move about the room. Use deliberate, purposeful, sustained gestures: hold up an object, roll up your sleeves. To invite students’ questions, adopt an open, casual stance. Beware of nervous foot shifting, however, and aimless, distracting gestures.

 Use Graphics The biggest problems with graphics are that they are usually too small to read and contain too much material. Keep graphics simple and large. Discuss the graphic in your lecture. A graphic that is not referenced during the lecture is not much help

To aid memory, use visual illustrations during a lecture.  Visual illustrations are remembered longer than verbal information, and they can aid the recall of information that is associated with them.  Many classrooms are equipped with technology that will help you add other dimensions to your lecture.

 The use of real objects can increase attention, particularly if they are passed around the room. Remember to pause, giving students time to look at them.

Use  PowerPoint and  Slide ware Presentation

 Many instructors find PowerPoint useful in enhancing lectures and emphasizing key point to their students. However, misuse and overuse of this software can lead to a room full of bored looks and glassy stares. To avoid “death by PowerPoint,” consider the following tips.

•             PowerPoint is a visual medium. Use graphics, pictures, models, and other images instead of bullets to make your point whenever possible.

•             In PowerPoint, less can be more. Think big, bold, andbrief. Do not put large amounts of text on the screen. Aim for no more than seven lines per slide and ruthlessly edit so that your bullets contain only the main points.

•             Design your visuals so students in the back row can see them. Font sizes less than 24 pts are difficult to read. Try to choose san serif fonts such as Tahoma, Arial, or Verdana, which are easier to read when projected.

•             Avoid putting large amounts of text on the screen and then reading it to the audience. Pause for a moment and let the students read the slide before you comment or elaborate on it.

•             Use animation events sparingly.

•             Use highlighting features to focus attention on what you are discussing.

•             Think contrast when selecting colors for the background and text. Yellow or white text on a black background, for instance, is a good high-contrast choice.

•             Select color combinations with care. Text and background in red and blue; red and green; or blue and black can be difficult to read. Also, be aware that color-blind individuals have trouble telling the difference between red and green, or blue and purple. Avoid these color combinations when possible.

•             Spend enough time on each slide to fully develop your explanation. Three minutes per slide is a good

•             Use slide ware to illustrate and enhance, not duplicate verbal material.

•             Plan for a maximum of 1 slide for every 1½ – 2 minutes of lecture.

•             Use pictures, graphs, video, or handouts to display complex material rather than reducing to over-simplified bullet points.

•             Never use a slide with key elements that you know will be too hard to see or read.

•             Relevant detail in charts and graphs must be readable from the back of the hall.

•             Keep text slides simple:

•             San serif fonts are most readableFont size less that 24 point may be too small to read

•             Maximum of six text lines, six words per line

•             Text animation often distracts and detracts – use minimally

•             Don’t read the slides – let the audience do that.

•             Face and talk to the audience, not the screen.

•             Use laser pointers minimally – they require you to face the slide.

 Develop Listening Skills

To prevent students from sinking into passive listening, also engage students’ active listening skills by interspersing questions throughout your lecture.

 Can the rest of the class hear the student asking or answering a question?  Have the student stand up and speak loudly enough so everyone can hear. If necessary, repeat the question or answer so that the entire class can hear. 

Listeners are quickly saturated with new information. Pictures, examples, and other images help the listener to encode the new information and make it memorable. Remember Howard Gardner’s advice, a few things learned well are more valuable than a lot of information soon forgotten. In general, learners can maintain somewhere between five and nine ideas in mind at a single time. Aim for the lower end of this, and you are more likely to be effective than if you try to teach too much. Cluster things you talk about. 

Not all students are good listeners. But it is your responsibility to grab their attention and maintain it. Your job is easier if students come to class prepared for the lecture. To do this, provide them with strategies for arriving to class better prepared

 Summarizing reflects on what was read, making sense of it. Students who are unfamiliar with this system should try it out on a small chunk of reading, rather than a whole chapter, until they become comfortable with it. A prepared listener is a motivated listener, because what is being talked about makes more sense and builds on what the learner has read

 Good discussion questions get the students’ attention.  Start by asking a question associated with something they should have read – not a recall question, but perhaps one on a controversial topic. Start with a divergent question such as, “What are the criteria for evaluating good teaching?” Write the first answer on the board. Ask for another. When you have ten or so criteria, ask the class which is the single best criteria and why? Who has a different opinion? Do not ask recall questions that have a single correct answer unless you are going to do something with the response.  Ask the question, and then call on a student to answer it. If you identify the student first, the rest of the class is off the hook, and they may pay less attention.

  Closing The Lecture

Tell them what you told them.  Although the lowest point for student attention is between 20 to 40 minutes into the lecture, attention picks up again from minutes 40 to 45. But the drawback is that now you are beginning to fatigue. This would be a good time to summarize the important concepts or information for the day. Go over the objectives and the resolution. This strategy brings together the information and helps hold it together.  Involve students in the final five minutes of class, rather than lecture to them. Studies have shown that students are thinking about leaving, and assimilation of new information is at its lowest point. Instead, have students jot down the most important thing they learned, or a question they would like answered about the day’s lecture, or have them answer a single question over the lesson material. In the words of Howard Gardner (2000), “In a lecture, less is more.” It is very easy to present too much information, which quickly saturates students, causing them to drop into a passive-listening role.They may understand what is being said, but they are not retaining it

Ask the students for questions. This gives students an opportunity to clarify their understanding of the content. . Several questions which focus on the main points of the content may be used to summarize the content of the lecture. Ensure all answers have been given and offer an outlet to clarify questions that may occur at a later date. Ask for additional questions. Some trainees may have questions, but are too hesitant to raise their hands to ask while you are talking. Finally, close on a positive note. It give your trainees encouragement, expresses confidence in their abilities, and motivates them. Give everyone the opportunity to talk.  Spread the questions around; do not answer them all yourself – redirect them to other students in the class. Ask for examples from the students’ experiences.

Draw some conclusion for the class. Help students see that a purpose has been served, that something has been gained during the last hour. A well-planned conclusion rounds out the presentation, ties up loose ends, suggests ways for students to follow up on the lecture, and gives students a sense of closure. Use a transparency, slide or flipchart to review the summary points

Finish forcefully. Don’t allow your lecture to trail off or end in midsentence because the period is over, and avoid the last-minute “Oh, I almost forgot. . .” An impressive ending will echo in students’ minds and prompt them to prepare for the next meeting. End with a thought-provoking question or problem; a quotation that sets an essential theme; a summation of the major issue as students now understand it, having had the benefit’ of the lecture just delivered; or a preview of coming attractions. End your lecture with the volume up. Make your voice strong, lift your chin up, keep your eyes facing the audience. Be sure to stay after class for a few minutes to answer students’ questions.

Strengths and Utility

Lectures are a straightforward way to impart knowledge to students quickly. Instructors also have a greater control over what is being taught in the classroom because they are the sole source of information. Students who are auditory learners find that lectures appeal to their learning Logistically, a lecture is often easier to create than other methods of instruct Lecture is a method familiar to most teachers because it was typically the way they were taught. Because most college courses are lecture-based, students gain experience in this predominant instructional delivery method.

 Used in conjunction with active learning teaching strategies, the traditional lecture can be an effective way to achieve instructional goals. The advantages of the lecture approach are that it provides a way to communicate a large amount of information to many listeners, maximizes lecturer control and is non-threatening to students.

The lecture offers the opportunity to deliver a great deal of information to a small or large number of learners while using the teacher’s time efficiently. The teacher can organize and prepare the content and practice the delivery until satisfied that the lecture will help the most learners possible. The teacher can help the students to pull information together, understand it better, or organize it in a way that allows the learner to know when he can and can’t use it.

There are a number of advantages to lectures. For example, a lecture is a convenient way to instruct large groups. The lecture method provides for the effective use of time and manpower in that the instructor can present many ideas to a large group in a relatively short period of time. Also, the lecture method can be used to supplement other methods of instruction.

 Lectures can be used to present information that would be difficult for the student to get in other ways, particularly if the students do not have the time required for research, or if they do not have access to reference material. Lectures also can usefully and successfully supplement other teaching devices and methods. A brief introductory lecture can give direction and purpose to a demonstration or prepare students for a discussion by telling them something about the subject matter to be covered.

In a lecture, the instructor can present many ideas in a relatively short time. Facts and ideas that have been logically organized can be concisely presented in rapid sequence. Lecturing is unquestionably the most economical of all teaching methods in terms of the time required to present a given amount of material.

The lecture is particularly suitable for introducing a new subject and for explaining the necessary back- ground information. By using a lecture in this way, the instructor can offer students with varied back- grounds a common understanding of essential principles and facts.

 Lectures are best suited for making information memorable; that is, lectures provide elaboration of content, examples, and context. Also, because texts often lag behind current knowledge, lectures are valuable methods for presenting new information.

Weaknesses and Problems

 Lecturing remains one of the more popular methods to transmit information and ideas by teachers, trainers and speakers. As students and audience participants we are quite familiar with the approach. Lectures can be informative, boring and overwhelming depending on the compelling nature of the message and the presenter’s style and clarity of message. The lecture method usually is one-way communication and allows for little or none audience participation. The result is audience misunderstanding, loss of information and poor retention.

Although the lecture method can help the instructor meet special challenges, it does have several drawbacks. Too often the lecture inhibits student participation and, as a consequence, many students willingly let the instructor do all the work. Learning is an active process, and the lecture method tends to foster passiveness and teacher-dependence on the part of the students. As a teaching method, the lecture does not bring about maximum attainment of certain types of learning outcomes. Motor skills, for example, can seldom be learned by listening to a lecture.

The lecture does not easily allow the instructor to estimate the students’ understanding as the material is covered. Within a single period, the instructor may unwittingly present more information than students can absorb, and the lecture method provides no accurate means of checking student progress.

The major struggle faced by the lecturer is to keep the students actively involved. Passive listening rarely promotes learning

Many instructors find it difficult to hold the attention of all students in a lecture throughout the class period. To achieve desired learning outcomes through the lecture method, an instructor needs considerable skill in speaking.

The lecture method limits the amount of student participation. A lecture is inadequate for teaching hands-on skills and it is not an effective method for maintaining student interest.

 Contrary to popular belief, lectures are not the best method for imparting large amounts of information. Voluminous information is better presented in text format, where it can be made available for review whenever the students need access to it. In fact, one of the most effective learning strategies students can employ is to read and then re-read their text assignment

The disadvantages are that lecturing minimizes feedback from students, assumes an unrealistic level of student understanding and comprehension, and often disengages students from the learning process causing information to be quickly forgo

Students strong in learning styles other than auditory learning will have a harder time being engaged by lectures. Students who are weak in note-taking skills will have trouble understanding what they should remember from lectures. Students can find lectures boring causing them to lose interest. Students may not feel that they are able to ask questions as they arise during lectures. Teachers may not get a real feel for how much students are understanding because there is not that much opportunity for exchanges during lectures.

Lectures are one tool in a teacher’s arsenal of teaching methods. Just as with all the other tools, it should only be used when most appropriate

References

Beitz JM. 1994. Dynamics of effective oral presentations: Strategies for nurse educators. AORN Journal 59(5): 1026–1032. 

Edlich RF. 1993. My last lecture. Journal of Emergency Medicine 11(6): 771–774. 

McIntosh N. 1996. Why Do We Lecture? JHPIEGO Strategy Paper #2. JHPIEGO Corporation: Baltimore, Maryland. 

Munson LS. 1992. How to Conduct Training Seminars: A Complete Reference Guide for Training Managers and Professionals. McGraw-Hill: New York. 

Renner P. 1993. The Art of Teaching Adults. Training Associates: Vancouver, British Columbia. 

Ruyle K. 1995. Group training methods, in The ASTD Technical and Skills Training Handbook. Kelly L (ed). McGraw-Hill: New York. 

Silberman ML. 1990. Active Training: A Handbook of Techniques, Designs, Case Examples, and Tips . Lexington Books: New York. 

Sullivan RL and JL Wircenski. 1996. Technical Presentation Workbook. ASME Press: New York. 

Twigg CA. 1994. The need for a national learning infrastructure. Educom Review 29(4–6). Vella F. 1992. Medical education: Capitalizing on the lecture method. FASEB Journal 6(3): 811–812.

 

Stimulus variation, in the Stanford sense, focuses mainly on the latter. Some of the things the student teacher is trained in are the use of movement in a systematic way and the avoidance of teaching from one spot, the use of gestures, and the development of verbal and non-verbal methods of focusing children’s attention, the development of teaching methods other than the teacher monologue by encouraging pupil participation, the systematic use of pauses, and the controlled use of different sensory channels by switching primary modes of communication,

Meaning and Nature. The skillful change in the stimuli is known as the skill of stimulus variation. ,Just  to avoid boredom, it is the teacher’s skills to stimulate the students, increase their active participation, enthusiasm and spirit of study

The chief aim of the teacher’s teaching in the class room is to make the lesson impressive and interesting. For this, use of various types of methods and techniques are an essentiality . In order to attract the students, teacher  may present various type of stimuli and can function as stimulus. He/she presents various stimuli, and herself/ himself can function as stimulus. He/she presents various stimuli such as movement of the body, gesture, changes in speech, focusing of the feeling, change in the interaction style in the students , pause and change in the order of audio visual aids. He/she can attract the learners by changing all these aspects which function as stimuli

Stimulus variation is a way of enhancing children learning by helping them remain attentive. It is a way of maintaining students ‘ attention. If the teacher talks too long students are bound to lose  interests or eye conduct to the teacher. The teacher should reduce talking such that pupils has interest in what they are doing through varying stimulus. A teacher who is able to vary stimulus his/her  lesson become effective as there is high participation with learners and great achievements of the lesson objectives.  Positive results of learners who given a task in a more interesting lesson can perform well resulting no disciplinary problems.

Student learning largely depends upon ‘attending’ to the relevant source of information. It is a fact that, the learner has to attend to information attentively. Attention is an essential condition for effective learning. What will  the teacher  do as a teacher in order to sustain students’ attention ? he /she should deliberately use  attention drawing behavior in the  class to draw and sustain students’  attention towards what he / she  want to convey.

The skill of stimulus variation involves deliberate change in attention drawing behavior of the teacher in order to secure and sustain students’ attention to what is being taught. The skill of  stimulus variation implies attracting and  focusing students’  attention by changing stimuli in the environment. The variation in the stimuli generates interest among students in their learning and hence helps in their academic achievement.

It is relatively unusual for students to attend to same thing continuously. It is very  difficult for one to attend to the same stimulus for more than a few minutes; in some cases a few seconds and even less. Therefore, for securing and sustaining the attention of the pupils to the lesson it is imperative to make variations in the stimulus. This is because attention is the necessary pre-requisite for learning.

A resourceful teacher, have to develop the skill in him /her to attract and hold the attention of his / her  students throughout the teaching. He/she should deliberately change his/ her  attention-drawing behavior in class.

Training in the skills of stimulus variation is aimed at helping student teachers to avoid teaching styles likely to induce boredom in their pupils. A stimulus situation that changes in different ways is one of the most powerful influences in maintaining orienting activity by the pupils. Carefully structured teaching material and approaches to the subject can have an important effect here, but so can the way a teacher conducts his lesson.

For the success of any lesson, it is essential to secure and sustain the attention of the pupils learning is optimum when the pupils are fully attentive to the teaching-learning process. How to secure and sustain the attention is main theme of this skill. It is known

that attention of the individual tends to shift from one stimulus toothier very quickly. It is very difficult for an individual to attend to the same stimulus for more than a few seconds

There are a number of  factors which influence what the students are likely to attend to.

Intensity : A louder sound, a brighter light can capture any one’s attention. However, continuity of loudness and brightness tend to have a quick decreasing effect in attracting attention,

Contrast : Anything which is bigger than other things in the surrounding environment attracts attention. One’s perceptual field makes a difference in attracting

Movement : A moving thing attracts our attention more in comparison to a h e d  thing. Self activity: Attention is sustained if the students are asked or motivated t o  engage themselves in instructional activities,

Audio-visual aids : It has been proved  that audio-visual aids have great potential to help students in their learning. For example, AV aids  are  a powerful medium to attract and hold students’ attention. You should use a variety of audio-visual media to make your teaching more effective and meaningful.

Teacher’s personal behavior: If the teacher is enthusiastic, stimulating, energetic, and expressive,  he/ she  gets more attention than when he/she  is dull and monotonous.

Component Skills of Stimulus variation

The behaviors associated with the skill of stimulus variation are;

Teacher movement :

Varying movements by continuously changing location within the classroom ,means making movements from one place to another with some purpose. As for writing on the black board, to conduct experiment, to explain the chart or model, to pay attention to the pupil who is responding to some question etc. This captures pupils’ attention and every position they are sitting they do not  feel the distance. Pupils feel that the teacher is with them .The movements are in a way of reducing the distance from students..

The physical movements of the teacher in the class carry much importance. While excess of physical activities is undesirable the teacher is like a stone idol without these activities.. It is observed that the teachers’ movement in the classroom draws the attention of the students. This behavior of  the teacher makes the student feel that  his participation in instructional activities is being supervised by  the teacher.

The movements in the  classroom  should always  be meaningful and related to the teaching that means the movements should have  a pedagogic perspective . There should not be any aimless wandering in the classroom.

The body movements perform numerous pedagogical functions :

Like emphasizing  the  importance  of  shape, size, and  movements  of  the  object  being taught.  explaining emotions and feelings.

Combining verbal exposition with gestures.  for example, if discussing the shape of an object, one  can use the hands to show the shape of the object.

Teacher Gestures

Gestures are the movements of the parts of the body the teacher’s body movements – which communicate certain meaningful ideas to the students, These include movements of head, hand and body parts to arrest attention, to express emotions or to indicate shapes, sizes and movements. All these acts are performed to become more expressive.

Gestures also prove helpful is making the lesson effective in the class room. These include facial gestures (laughing, raising eyebrows, emotions etc.), signals of eyes, nodding, hand signals (signal to stop, signal to continue the task and signal to keep quiet) etc. Gestures can be displayed by purposeful movements of the parts of the body. As a teacher

One should consciously attempt to extend the range and frequency of  your gestures, For it

1.            Move hands and fingers to describe things, measurements, etc;

2.            While talking with the students, show agreements by nodding heads so

as to encourage the students to go on explaining;

3.            Show adoration or wonder by raising eyebrows high so as to show

interest in what the students are talking about;

4.            Use mimics to show agreements, disagreements, wonder and disbelief,

anger, or incomprehension, etc;

5.            Clasp hands to attract the students’ attention or to show happiness,wonder etc.

Changes in Speech Pattern Silence / Pause.

The use of pitch in voice projection as a stimulus ,should indicate ,relative important of information. That’s it should indicate happiness or sorrow. In other words slowing speech pattern is a way of stimulating pupils’ interests. Variation can be in volume or accent of voice When the teacher wants to show emotions or to put emphasis on a particular point, sudden or radical changes in tone, volume or speed of the verbal presentation are brought out. The change in the speech pattern makes the pupils attentive and creates interest in the lesson.

The pupils feel boredom with the speech at the same pitch, and they get deviated from the lesson. The teacher should bring fluctuations in his voice. Change in tone, volume or speed of verbal communication is known  as  change in speech pattern. Take modulation of voice for example. Sudden variation in voice   will attract the attention of the students. It should be noted that while teaching one should not speak in a monotonous tone. One  should be able to change the  speech pattern at proper points and situations, according to the need  of. students to draw their attention and the subject to emphasize a point. Speak using different speech patterns to avoid boredom;

Do not be monotonous; Speak attractively and energetically; Speak loudly enough for the students at the back to hear what the teacher is saying, but not too loud so that the students at the front get shocked.

Pausing

As and where the need arises the teacher should use pauses in his teaching process.Make use of short pauses properly to attract the students’ attention and to increase the students’ desire to listen further to what the teacher is talking about; do not talk in a hurry so as to lose breath;

Pausing means “stop talking” by the teacher for a moment. When the teacher becomes silent during teaching, it at once draws the attention of the students with curiosity towards the teacher. The message given at this point is easily received by the pupils.

Silence can indicate that what has just said is important or it can indicate that what happened is unacceptable. Silence can also indicate the opportunity allowance for pupils to think and respond to the asked question. Remain silent until pupils are also observe silence

Change in Audio-Visual Sequence

. A continuous change in the sequence of using audio visual aids concentrates the attention of the pupil upon the teacher. He should use sometime visual and sometimes audio-aids.

Vary Methodology :

For example use of demonstrations, ,group work ,songs .group work projects or individual projects ,like in Art and craft, music social studies etc. Introducing variation is because each and every pupil would have something which is interested in. Dramatization  ,story telling and jokes are part of stimulating learners at every angle. Give children current reading publications ,oral reports ,outdoor activities ,guest speakers ,tests in small groups and individual tests. Different pupils prefer to learn in different modes so a teacher has to vary methodology

Variation in Questioning :

Questions is also a stimulus as it provide pupils with the opportunity to express..Questions themselves should be varied,from low order and high order questions. .When asked, do not directly answer the question; let the student finish his question first so as to give time to you to prepare for a suitable and right answer; do not cut off the student’s question or explanation

Focusing :

It is used to concentrate the attentions of the pupils on some specific point or event. It includes verbal focusing, gesture focusing and verbal or oral gesture focusing        The teacher draws the attention of the pupils to the particular point in the lesson either by using verbal or gesture focusing. In verbal focusing the teacher makes statements like, “look here” listen to me” “note it carefully”. In gestural focusing pointing towards some object with fingers or underlining the important words on the black board.

Focusing can be used when the teacher want to direct the students’ attention to  a particular point which they are required to observe. Focussing can be obtained through verbal communication or gesture or both.

Varying of Non -verbal Gestures:

In the lesson delivery the teacher should be able to use hands ,eyes ,body or even clap ,stamp feet as a way of maintaining pupils interest in the lesson.

The teacher can even make strategic movements around the classroom or pointing to something written on the wall. These gestures should have a specific purpose ,so that pupils should be able to decode what those gestures mean . Over use of gestures might end up becoming a habit and then defeat the purpose of being a stimulus.

When the teacher  want to emphasize some particular aspect during the teaching and direct students’ attention to it, he/she should use statements like – ‘Listen carefully’, ‘Look  at  this  chart’,  Watch this  experiment’,  Now, ‘This  Is  really very important’. These statements help the teacher draw student’s attention to key learning point

Gestural focusing :

With the use of gestures only i.e. the movements of head and hand the teacher can attract the attention of the students to a particular point. Even if he/she underline the point  on  the  blackboard,  the  students  will  be  attracted  more towards  it  when appropriate gestures are used for this purpose.

Verbal and gestural focusing :

In the verbal focusing, the word are repeated again and again to concentrate the attention such as “Look here, attend to me, don’t see outside because I am going to announce something important.” In the gesture focusing, the attention of the pupils is concentrated with the help of gestures towards some desirable direction or an object When both verbal and gestures focusing devices are used to focus the attention of  students, it has more impact on them. For example, when the teacher ask the students: “Look at the diagram” and at the same time draw the diagram on the blackboard or  overhead projector transparency, he/she will be able to help your students properly  understand  the  concept.  Thus  a changes the  sensory channel-from listening (verbal speech) to looking (visual display), from speaking to doing, from writing to demonstrating, etc, will helps in  maintaining  the level of  attention and motivation of  the students. Such changes can be brought about through judicious combination of  various means  of  communication.

Oral  to  visual : Oral-Visual Switching

The teacher gives information to the class verbally about something. This is called oral medium. When the teacher is showing maps, charts and object without saying something, this is called visual medium. If the teacher is giving information to the pupils through any one medium (oral, visual, oral visual) for a long time, it is possible that the students may lose attention to what the teacher is conveying to them. Therefore it is essential for the teacher to change medium rapidly in order to secure and sustain pupils’ attention to what he says

To  make teaching effective and also to break monotony one can change the focus of attention from verbal (oral) stimulus to visual stimulus. While explaining a point if one show a chart or a model (switching from oral to visual) and after showing the chart the teacher again start speaking (switching from visual to oral mode) it is known as oral to visual sensory focusing.

Oral- oral  visual

When the teacher while speaking shows objects, charts and models and explains their various parts. It is switching from oral to oral-visual. The teacher can shift focus from the verbal (oral) stimulus to the audio -and  the visual stimulus and vice-versa. For example, if a teacher has just introduced the topic and is explaining the meaning of the concept and then shows a chart or  a model and using it explains the parts of the concept and asks the students to observe the chart/model (visual), he/she is using audio to audio-visual switching., This switching involves the use of more than one sense.

Visual oral – visual

When the teacher demonstrates the experiment silently and then explains the phenomenon with the help of charts, maps, diagram etc. This is visual-oral switching. This involves the  shifting of  focus from  visual stimulus to audio-visual stimulus and vice-versa. For example, the teacher can demonstrate experiments and then explains the phenomenon with the help of a diagram.

Oral visual

When the teacher while speaking, shows objects, maps, charts, globe etc. It is switching form oral to visual.

Student  movement

The teacher  can change the  focus of  attention  of  the  students by involving them in  physically  doing something. He/she  can involve them in experiments, handling apparatus, or dramatization. By  doing so, he/she  can sustain their interest in the teaching-learning process.

Variation in Interaction Style :

Interaction between the teacher and the pupils is very essential in the class room teaching otherwise it become monotonous. Therefore the style of interaction in the class room should go on changing.  Interaction style can be used as stimulus ,for example teacher/student or student/student or student /teacher .Variation in interaction so as to stimulate students inerests .Some variation interaction styles are used in group work or individual work

Sensory Change or Variation in Sensory Channels:

Varying the senses that students are using. Student might require to touch ,see ,smell or ,feel. If these senses are not varied it means those pupils who interested in hearing are going to benefit and those pupils who are interested in touching are not benefiting.The introduction of addition sensory modes in a lesson will make the lesson interesting..

PATTERN OF EVALUATION SHEET FOR SKILL OF STIMULUS VARIATION

Components of skill of stimulus                                         7 Point Scale

Min.   Normal   Max.

0      1 2 3      4 5 6

1.            Body movements were made.

2.            Teacher used gestures.

3.            Verbal focusing was made.

4.            Gesture focusing was made.

5.            Verbal gesture focusing was made.

6.            Fluctuations in the voice were made.

7.            Teacher and pupil interaction took place.

8.            Pupil-pupil interaction took place

9.            Teacher class interaction took place.

10.          Pause were used.

11.          changes in Audio visual sequence were made.

12.          Stimulus variation motivated the pupils.

Every lesson is a unique thing influenced by the emotions of the teacher and learners.The teacher can make lesson more interesting through the effective use of stimulus variations to make learners motivated on grasping concepts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Dwight, and Ryan, Kevin. 1969. Microteaching. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Allen, Dwight, and Wang, Weiping. 1996. Microteaching. Beijing, China: Xinhua Press.

Allen, Mary E., and Belzer, John A. 1997. “The Use of Microteaching to Facilitate Teaching Skills of Practitioners Who Work with Older Adults.” Gerontology and Geriatrics Education 18 (2):77.

Bansal S and Maheshwari Rakhi .Teaching of English.R,Lall. Publishers.Meerut .India.

Borg, Walter R.; Kelley, Marjorie L.; Langer, Philip; and Gall, Meredith D. 1970. The Mini Course: A Microteaching Approach to Teacher Education. Beverly Hills, CA: Macmillan.

Brent, Rebecca; Wheatley, Elizabeth; and Thomson, W. Scott. 1996. “Videotaped Microteaching: Bridging the Gap from the University to the Classroom.” The Teacher Educator 31 (3):238.

Brown, George A. 1975. Microteaching: A Program of Teaching Skills. London: Methuen.

Gregory, Thomas B. 1972. Encounters with Teaching: A Microteaching Manual. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Maheshwari v.k and Bansal S..Technology of Teaching .R.Lall Publishers, Meerut India.

McGarvey, Brian, and Swallow, Derek. 1986. Microteaching in Teacher Education and Training. Dover, NH: Croom Helm.

McIntyre, Donald; Macleod, Gordon; and Griffiths, Roy. 1977. Investigations of Microteaching. London: Croom Helm.

Trott A. Microteaching: An Overview. London: Educational Media

International, 1976

Turney, Cliff; Cairns L.; Williams, G.; and Hatton, N. 1975. Sydney Micro Skills. Sydney: Sydney University Press.

Turney, Cliff; Clift, John C.; Dunkin, Michael J.; and Traill, Ronald D. 1973. Microteaching: Research, Theory and Practice. Sydney: Sydney University Press.

Vare, Jonathan W. 1994. “Partnership Contrasts: Microteaching Activity as Two Apprenticeships in Thinking.” Journal of Teacher Education 45 (3):209.

Wahba, Essam Hanna. 1999. “Microteaching.” Forum: A Journal for the Teacher of English outside the United States 37 (4):23.

Wilkinson, Gayle A. 1996. “Enhancing Microteaching through Additional Feedback from Preservice Administrators.” Teaching and Teacher Education 12 (2):211.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

 

Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities – that’s training or instruction – but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed”

Thomas More quotes (English Humanist, Statesman and Chancellor of England, 1477-1535)

Teaching is not primarily telling. It’s helping other people learn. That means the focus is on the learners, not the teacher. People learn best through experiencing something themselves, so when you are striving to teach something, you are constantly trying to Get into the shoes of the learners so that you can better understand where they are and what they need from you to learn the subject understudy.

Explanation is a key skill. Generally, the skill of explanation is complex Explanation is to explain or to give understanding  to another person. It leads from the known to the unknown, it bridges the gap between a person’s knowledge or experience and new phenomena, and it may also aim to show the interdependence of phenomena in a general sable manner. It assists the learner to assimilate and accommodate new data or experience.

In a classroom, an explanation is a set of interrelated statements made by the teacher related to a phenomenon, an idea:, etc. in order to bring about or increase understanding in the pupils about it. The teacher should practice more and more of desirable behaviors like using explaining links using beginning and concluding statements and testing pupil understands behaviors like making irrelevant statements, lacking in continuity, using inappropriate vocabulary, lacking in fluency, and using vague words and phrases as far as possible.

A  class in not homogeneous group. Some pupils are intelligent some have normal intelligence, some are mature and others are immature. But the teacher has to impart knowledge to all. To present the subject matter in the simplified form before the pupils and making it acquirable is called the skill of explanation. It is necessary in all the subjects. In its absence the presentation of the subject matter is not possible. In the skill of explanation, such words are used in the statements by which the statements exhibit the clarity of their meanings.

The explanation serves two purposes: (1) to introduce the subject by giving some background about its usefulness and application; and (2) to describe the subject in a simple, complete, and tantalizing way. The explanation should create a desire to become proficient in the subject under study

The components of skill of explaining involved

• Clarity
• Continuity
• Relevance to content using beginning and concluding statements
• Covering essential points
• Simple
• Relevant and interesting examples appropriate media
• Use of inducts, deductive approach, it can be functional, causal or sequential

Characteristics of effective explanation

Coordination in Statements. Coordination in the statements used during the explanation is very essential; otherwise there will be all hotch- potch.

Relevant   Statements. While presenting the subject matter, the concerned statements should be relevant.

Fluency  in Language. The teacher should use fluent language so that the pupils may listen and understand his thoughts.

Connecting  Links. The use of words, idioms or connecting links such as ‘therefore’ as a result of etc. is essential to link the different thought or statements.

Clear Beginning Statement. Before starting any explanation, the teacher should make the pupils aware of what he is to teach on that day through a clear beginning statement.

Use of proper Words. The teacher should use proper words for explaining an object or an event otherwise he would be in a state of confusion

Practicing Skill of Explaining

An effective explanation should be simple, clear, concise and interesting. In general it should not be rambling, long or dull. However, what is to be explained may be complex and abstract. Effective explanation requires careful and sensitive planning. It requires the recognition of a number of essential characteristics when putting it into operation :

(i) Planning

• Establish clearly, in advance, the major point or points you wish to communicate to your pupils. These may be ideas, rules, relationships, generalization, etc.
• Establish links between ideas.
• Obtain information from pupils about their knowledge, experience, and interest to guide your planning. Your explanation must appeal to your class.
• Decide the means by which explanation is likely to be effective.
• Be flexible. Be prepared to modify your plans in the light of feedback from pupils during the lesson. Adapt to pupil needs.
• Be brief. Think how much you recall after 10 minutes.

(ii) Operation

-          (a)Consider other skills on which Explanation partly rests (e.g. teacher liveliness) – React to your class entering behavior

-          (b)Structure: introduction, elaboration, summary.

-          (c) Emphasis the main points, so that their importance is clear.

-          (d) Show them the relationship between the main points.

-          (e)  Determine (if necessary) the general principles involved.

Suggestions for effective explanation

Try to think like a student, not like a professor. Remember that they probably haven’t taken a lot of advanced classes or worked in a lab. So they are lacking in both basic facts and general background.

1. Probe First. Before you start to explain a topic or problem, try find out exactly where the student is stuck. Don’t just start at the beginning of the problem or topic and plow through to the end. When the student asks you to explain problem, ask the student something like, “Where did you get stuck? Or what is the part you don’t understand?” This probing for the exact nature of the student’s problem may seem to take a long time, but it pays in the end. It will save you from wasting time and energy explaining things that are clear and allow you to zero in on the real problem.

2. Explain in Small Bites. Explain a short piece of a problem at a time, and then don’t go on until

(a) There is surety that everyone understands what you explained, and

(b) There is surety that you need to explain the rest.

3. Don’t Start too Far Back. When a student asks a specific question, try to answer it without going over a lot of background material

Ways to get the students to tell you what they need to know – How to figure out where they are at:

A. Collect Questions

Ask the students for specific questions or topics that they want you to go over. Write the questions &/or topics on the board. Do not answer the questions as they are asked. Keep collecting questions until you have a reasonably long list. Once you have the list of questions/topics on the board, you can look at the list and decide what to do first. You can go over the questions in order of importance, or logical order, or the order they were covered in class.  Do whatever seems sensible to you. As you cover each question, check it off the list.

The first few times you do this, it may be very difficult to get the students to speak up. So be patient and give them plenty of time to come up with questions. If they don’t seem to have any questions, suggest that they look through their notes or text to find points that were unclear. Wait until you have a decent length list before you start answering the questions.

This method works best if you can look at the list and see instantly what topics need to be discussed. So be sure your list is self explanatory

B. The Old Card Trick

Ask each student to come to class with at least one question written on a 3 X 5 card. Collect the cards at the beginning of class and use the questions to organize the session. One way to proceed is to spend a few minutes reading the questions silently. Then you can write the good questions on the board, as above, or read them out loud. Another way to start is simply to shuffle the cards and read one out loud at random. Once you have picked the question(s) to go over, you can answer the questions yourself, or you can let the students answer each other’s questions.

An electronic variation – ask the students to email you the questions the night before. This gives you more time to compose your thoughts, decide which questions to use, and look up the answers.

C. Ask Them a Question

Ask the students a question, preferably about an experimental situation. After you pose the question, you can then ask the students:

(1) What do you know that’s relevant to this question/situation?

(2) What do you need to measure or find out?

After you have discussed what information you need, you can then go over how to use the information to get the answer. This sort of exercise will reveal what level of knowledge the students have (what facts they know) and their level of insight (how good they are at applying the facts). It will also allow any misconceptions or uncertainties the students have to surface.

There are 7 considerations for effective explanation

1. Is the explanation understood?

2. Does it interest your class?

3. Does it cover the main elements?

4 .Did you respond to your  pupils understanding?

5. Did you classify the responses?

6. Are illustrations interesting?

7. Are illustrations relevant?

We will now look at the question of examples. Effective explanation relies on illustration, analogy and the use of examples. In the task below, attention should be given in particular to these.

a) Examples

These are central to teaching new ideas and to obtaining feedback as to whether the ideas have been understood. Examples may be used:

i. To provide concrete instances or information within the learner’s experience and understanding, to lead pupils to perceive common features, and to abstract generalizations appropriate to all the specific instances.

ii. To test understanding of an idea, concept or principle, it may be applied to particular situations, for example to produce examples of the general category, to determine whether a particular phenomenon is an instance of the general relationship, or to use the general principle to solve a specific problem.

b) Using Examples

Inductive approach

It starts with examples, and infers generalization from them. The major claims are:

i. It helps students acquire skills for looking for order in an apparently pattern less set of data.

ii. Encourages divergent and creative thinking.

Deductive approach

It states the generalization first, and applies it to a number of examples. The initial statement, even if not fully understood by students, helps to focus their attention on those aspects of examples on which teacher wishes them to concentrate. Classroom observation suggests that effective explanation often occurs when first statement of aural is followed by examples and then by a second statement of the rule, for example, clarity in establishing relationship between general rule and specific examples.

1. Analogies. Compare the situation to something that is familiar to the students

2. Models. Use simple 3D models made of common objects.  use pre-school toys, tissue boxes, wire left by the repairmen, , etc, . . These models are low cost, easily replaceable, easy to see, and have great “wake ‘ up” value. They don’t have a lot of detail, which makes it easier to demonstrate the related point. Thinking about constructing a useful model or working through a good analogy helps  to see the important features of the subject matter

3. Using the Blackboard.  Prefer chalk to Power Point or overheads, especially in a small group setting such as a lab or discussion session. This is partially an aversion to technology that doesn’t always work and/or requires equipment that isn’t always provided) chalk gives much more flexibility in explaining things find it’s easier for students to take notes if one have to write it all on the board. It’s also more animated — somehow a chalk talk is more “live” than any of the other options, and therefore more interesting

4. Handouts. There are several different kinds of handouts – the first type is to help with note taking. Students have a hard time copying diagrams. It’s also difficult for the teacher to draw them perfectly. So give out handouts – 1 or 2 pp usually per class, with the basic structures and/or processes drawn the way one plan to draw them on the board. The handout helps the students follow and take notes without getting lost

In all cases, it is essential for the teacher to use examples which are relevant to student’s experience and interests, and their present level of understanding.

General errors & misunderstandings –

1. Confusing technical meanings and ordinary meanings of words.

Some scientific terms have technical meanings that are very different from their commonsense meanings. For example: The teacher asks “Does burning destroy matter?” and the student says “Yes.” The teacher groans and thinks the student is an idiot. But the student is not — s/he is using the term “destroy” in its ordinary English sense, and the teacher is using it in its technical physics sense. If  the teacher’s house burns down, the house will certainly be destroyed (in the English sense), even though the atoms that were in the house have not been altered. Another example “spontaneously” in chemistry does not mean “very quickly” or “all by itself” — it means “without net input of energy.” Unfortunately, in common English spontaneously means “all by itself” and often also “very quickly.” So students think spontaneous reactions occur rapidly &/or without an enzyme. This type of difference between technical and ordinary meanings often leads to a lot of confusion, because the , book or lecturer is using the term in the technical sense, while the student is using the same term in its non-technical, commonsense meaning. Even when the student tries to use the term correctly, s/he is often confused by the connotations that the word has in common usage.

2. Using words that have technical meanings and not even realizing it.

Some ordinary English words are used as technical terms, as explained above, but experienced lecturers are so used to using these words that they often forget that these words have special meanings. So the teachers don’t define the terms and are surprised when the students don’t know what they mean

3. Getting confused between similar but not identical terms.

Certain terms seem to be difficult to get straight,. There are many pairs of terms that are very similar in meaning and that are often used sloppily even in scientific writing (and speech). To make it worse, some of these terms are synonyms in common speech, such as “inhibition” and “repression.” A good way to clear up confusion is to “compare and contrast” — compare what is similar between the two terms and contrast what is different.

Precaution for Skill of Explaining -

•            Stand in front of what you wrote.

•             Face the board as you talk.

•             Write in corners of board or wherever there is space.

•             Use jargon, abbreviations. (Verbally and on board.)

•             Erase what you just wrote before everyone has finished copying it down. (When there is plenty of other old stuff you could have erased.)

•             Skip important steps. Start explaining in the middle.

•             Take a lot of time explaining the obvious.

•             Write too small or in unintelligible handwriting.

•             Show a slide and wave the laser pointer over it. (But don’t explain what’s on the slide.)

•             Mumble.

•             Talk too fast.

•             Stare at the floor.

•             Say something very complex (like the pathway above or a description of a complex structure) and write nothing on the board.

•             Insult the students – make fun of them (or their ignorance) when they ask questions, and berate them when they don’t speak up.                . Explain how stupid, worthless, lazy, pampered etc. students are nowadays. Not like when I was a student.

•             I don’t include making actual mistakes – everyone does that! (And it’s okay if you admit it.)

•            Explanation is not in simple language.

•             It is given the shape of an advice.

•             The thought included in it is not in a sequence.  Irrelevant things are  included.

•             It is not according to the age, experience and mental level of the pupils.

•             It is complicated, lengthy and small according to the objective of the lesson.

PATTERN OF OBSERVATION SHEET FOR SKILL OF EXPLAINING

Components of Explanatory Skill                                                     Frequencies(In Minutes)1 2 3 4 5 6

• The words connecting the ideas/statements were used.
• The statement used in the explanation had coordination/continuity.
• Initial statements of the explanation were clear.
• The language of the explanations was fluent.
• Proper words were used in the explanation.
• Questions were asked during explanation.
• Relevant statements were used during explanation Yes/No.
• Explanation also included irrelevant statement Yes/No.

 

Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible.
Eugene Ionesco

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Dwight, and Wang, Weiping. 1996. Microteaching. Beijing, China: Xinhua Press.

Bansal S and Maheshwari Rakhi .Teaching of English.R,Lall. Publishers.Meerut .India.

Borg, Walter R.; Kelley, Marjorie L.; Langer, Philip; and Gall, Meredith D. 1970. The Mini Course: A Microteaching Approach to Teacher Education. Beverly Hills, CA: Macmillan.

Brent, Rebecca; Wheatley, Elizabeth; and Thomson, W. Scott. 1996. “Videotaped Microteaching: Bridging the Gap from the University to the Classroom.” The Teacher Educator 31 (3):238.

Brown, George A. 1975. Microteaching: A Program of Teaching Skills. London: Methuen.

Gregory, Thomas B. 1972. Encounters with Teaching: A Microteaching Manual. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Maheshwari V.K and Bansal.S..Technology of Teaching .R.Lall Publishers, Meerut India.

McGarvey, Brian, and Swallow, Derek. 1986. Microteaching in Teacher Education and Training. Dover, NH: Croom Helm.

Turney, Cliff; Cairns L.; Williams, G.; and Hatton, N. 1975. Sydney Micro Skills. Sydney: Sydney University Press.

Wilkinson, Gayle A. 1996. “Enhancing Microteaching through Additional Feedback from Preservice Administrators.” Teaching and Teacher Education 12 (2):211.

The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds it hard to answer – Alice Wellington Rollins

A question is any sentence which has an interrogative form or function. In classroom settings, teacher questions are defined as instructional cues or stimuli that convey to students the content elements to be learned and directions for what they are to do and how they are to do it.

Effective questioning is a real compliment to the instructional skills.  It shows the ability to understand the student’s real needs.  It shows that for meaning that’s deeper than the spoken message.  Effective questioning is a powerful, learned skill

Purposes of Questioning

Questioning are useful to instructors for effectively planning class participation activities, for designing homework assignments, and for writing exams.  It also helps the teacher to match their goals or objectives for an assignment with the actual components of the assignment

What are the purposes of teachers’ classroom questions? A variety of purposes emerges, including:

• To develop interest and motivate students to become actively involved in lessons.

• To help students learn to construct meaning, to relate concepts, to guide thinking

• To evaluate students’ preparation and check on homework or seatwork completion

• To develop critical thinking skills and inquiring attitude to understand how students form concepts

• To review and summarize previous lessons and, to summarize information

• To nurture insights by exposing new relationships, and to gain insight about students’ interests

• To reveal prior misconception, to diagnose strengths and weaknesses, and to help students set realistic expectations by providing feedback

• To evaluate, to assess achievement of instructional goals and objectives

• To stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own and, to help students develop the habit of reflection, to increase students’ incentive to inquire, to discipline, manage, or control

• To encourage involvement of passive learner’s, and to give listening clues.

According to Kerry (1982), a teacher asks about 1000 questions per week. What purposes do these questions serve?

• To determine what students know and don’t know

• To develop critical and creative thinking skills

• To provide a review of material and content

• To prepare students for what is to be learned

• To check for comprehension or level of understanding

• To attract student attention

• To practice life-long learning skills

• To have fun learning

• To engage students in discussion

• To teach students to ask questions

For students, questioning strategies help to categorize and anticipate exam questions, allowing for more effective preparation. The strategies are also useful for study groups, focusing efforts and allowing members to test each other. They improve the student’s ability to clarify, reorganize, and accurately explain new information. Questioning also aids in self-assessment and self-monitoring.

Basis of Questioning skill

Questioning skills refer to one’s ability to formulate and respond to questions about situations, objects, concepts, and ideas. Questions may derive from oneself or from other people.

There are two levels of questions

Low-level questions refer to questions that require one to recall information that has been registered in memory. Low-level questions operate on the level of knowledge, drawing from one’s knowledge base of a subject.

The High-level questions encompass questions that require one to process information rather than simply recall it. High-level questions operate on one’s ability to comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information.

High-level questions may be further divided into two types:

Description questions require that one observe or describe an object using illustrations, demonstrations, maps, graphs, or tables. Examples of description questions are “What do you notice here?” and “Describe the object in front of you.”

Comparison questions require that one examine two or more objects or ideas and use statements or illustrations to identify similarities and differences. These are very effective high-level questions because they encourage students to process information in different ways. Examples of comparison questions are “What are the similarities and differences between the two objects?” and “Compare and contrast the two objects.”

Questions may also be dichotomized according to the number of answers they generate

Convergent Some questions are convergent, meaning there is only one correct answer. Convergent questions are sometimes called objective questions

Divergent questions, on the other hand, have more than one appropriate answer. They may be referred to as subjective questions.

DIVISIONS OF QUESTIONING

Questioning can be put into two divisions: Open-Ended Questions and Closed-Ended Questions.

Open-Ended Questions:  Open-ended questions are questions without a fixed limit. An open question is likely to receive a long answer.

They encourage continued conversation, and help you get more information.  Plus, they often provide opportunities to gain insight into the other person’s feelings.  Open-ended questions draw out more information.  If you want the caller to open up, use open-ended questions that start with who, what, where, why, when, and how.

Open questions have the following characteristics:

• They ask the respondent to think and reflect.

• They will give you opinions and feelings.

• They hand control of the conversation to the respondent.

• Open questions begin with such as: what, why, how, describe.

• Using open questions can be scary, as they seem to hand the baton of control over to the other person. However, well-placed questions do leave you in control as you steer their interest and engage them where you want them.

• When opening conversations, a good balance is around three closed questions to one open question. The closed questions start the conversation and summarize progress, whilst the open question gets the other person thinking and continuing to give you useful information about them.

Closed-Ended Questions:  Closed-ended questions have a fixed limit. A closed question can be answered with either a single word or a short phrase.

They’re often answered with a yes or no, or with a simple statement of fact.  Closed-ended questions are used to direct the conversation.  They usually get specific information or confirm facts.

Closed questions have the following characteristics:

•They give you facts.

•They are easy to answer.

•They are quick to answer.

•They keep control of the conversation with the questioner.

We use the open-ended questions to get more information and the closed-ended questions to focus in on one area.

TYPES OF QUESTIONS

There are numerous types of questioning. A few are

Rhetorical: The rhetorical question is usually defined as any question asked for a purpose other than to obtain the information the question asks A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question posed for its persuasive effect without the expectation of a reply. Rhetorical questions encourage the listener to think about what the (often obvious) answer to the question must be. When a speaker states, “How much longer must our people suffer with this wide spread corruption?”,no formal answer is expected. Rather, it is a rhetorical device used by the speaker to assert or deny something While sometimes amusing and even humorous, rhetorical questions are rarely meant for pure, comedic effect. A carefully crafted question can, if delivered well, persuade an audience to believe in the position(s) of the speaker is

Overhead: This type of question is NOT directed at any particular individual, but is asked of the entire class . . . “over their heads.” ASK – PAUSE – CALL. The ask-pause-call technique used in asking overhead questions allows every trainee in the class to profit from the thinking involved in the formulation of an answer. The overhead questioning technique is encouraged because your lead-off questions will start discussions

Direct: A direct question is asked of one person whom you call by name BEFORE asking the question. CALL – ASK – PAUSE for the answer. Direct questions are especially effective when you suspect an individual’s attention is wandering.

Relay: The relay technique places the instructor in the position of a moderator. The instructor accepts a question from a trainee, and then turns it over to another trainee to answer. This technique is very effective in promoting trainee participation and class discussion. Before doing this, bear in mind that you must be able to answer the question. This is not a duplicate. The fact that the mechanism for solving the problem is identical doesn’t matter, because it would be different use cases that would cause people to ask the question. So the people who want the “top down” approach would not be searching with the “sub site” question. So they would not be able to find the question.

Reverse: This. Closing questions as duplicates because they sound similar is destructive if the answers don’t/won’t/can’t be the same. Similarly, two superficially-different questions might be closed if the answers will be identical

Probing Questions: Sometimes you: the teacher ask an open-ended question to get more information and: the teacher you only get part of what: the teacher you need.  Now it’s time for a probing question.  A probing question is another open-ended question, but it’s a follow-up.  It’s narrower.  It asks about one area.  Probing questions are valuable in getting to the heart of the matter.

The Echo Question:  Here’s a good technique for getting more information.  : The teacher  can use this like a probing question.  The idea is to use the last part of a phrase the caller said.  Slightly raise the tone of your voice at the end of the phrase to convert it to a question.  Then pause and use silence

An echo question repeats part of the phrase that the student  used, using voice inflection to convert it to a question.  Some people call it mirroring or reflecting.  Others call it parroting.  We call it echoing.  Whatever you call it, it’s a valuable technique to use.

Leading Questions: Many things can be good or bad.  leading questions can also be good or bad.  Leading questions, if used improperly, can be manipulative because: the teacher  leading the student  to give the answer he want.  When they are used properly, you’re helping that student.  Leading questions often end with suggestive nudges toward the desired answer.  Some ending phrases would be, “Don’t you?”, “Shouldn’t you?”, “Won’t you?”, “Haven’t you?”, and “Right

Socratic questioning

Socratic questioning is at the heart of critical thinking and a number of homework problems draw from R.W. Paul’s six types of Socratic questions:

1. Questions for clarification:
2. Questions that probe assumptions:
3. Questions that probe reasons and evidence:
4. Questions about Viewpoints and Perspectives:
5. Questions that probe implications and consequences:
6. Questions about the question:

QUESTIONING TECHNIQUES

Good questions are essential to effective communication between : the teacher  and the student: the teacher  who lack the skill to effectively question their student create disinterest and boredom on the part of the student. They also ignore a fine opportunity to open communication lines for determining the effectiveness of the lesson. Good questions expand on central thoughts, develops the subject, and not on minor, nice-to-know points. Let us look at some rules for asking questions.

• Distribute questions at random. Do not always ask the same student or those sitting in a particular area. Ask questions of the entire class to promote thinking in all students and get them involved.

•Acknowledge all answers to ensure incorrect or vague answers are clarified.

•Don’t  use catch or trick questions. Students will not participate and you could possibly lose them if they feel humiliated.

•Allow enough time for the student to think about and give an answer. Do not waste time waiting if the student clearly does not know the answer, but do not cut the student off before ample time is given for the complete though process or answer period.

•Begin questions with the words that require thoughtful answers, such as, “Why, When, How, What,” etc. Stay away from questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. This will help stimulate and even guide students thinking.

•Avoid frequent group or choral responses. This method provides answers that are often unintelligible and errors that are hard to pick up.

•Do not waste time “pumping” a student . If the trainee does not know the answer, either offer an explanation or ask the question of another student.

Practicing Skill of Questioning

The skill of asking questions in the class room teaching is very important. By asking questions again and again, the teacher makes the pupils more thoughtful. He enables them to understand and subject deeply. Questions are those which help the pupils to think in depth about the various aspects of the problem. The teacher can use the questions in the following situations:

Prompting

When a pupil expresses his inability to answer some question in the class or his answer is incomplete. In some question pupils get some prompting regarding the answer. The teacher can ask such questions when the pupil expresses his inability to answer or accept frankly that “he does not know.” The teacher can ask such questions which prompt the pupils in solving the already asked questions.

Seeking further information.

When the pupils answer correctly in the class but the teacher wants to seek more information. In class, when the pupils are unable to answer any question or answer partially, then in order to receive complete and correct answer, the teacher can ask such questions by accepting that the answer given is correct, but the pupil should reveal more. There can be alternate answer to the question asked such as elaborate your answer more or why do you consider your answer correct. In this way, the teacher can seek maximum information from the pupils.

Re-focusing.

Sometimes, the teacher can ask probing questions to concentrate the attention of the pupils. For the very same purpose, the teacher may ask same question from other pupil.. Sometime, the teachers are not satisfied with the pupils’ answers. They draw the attention of the pupils towards different situations where the similar problems can arise. This makes the transfer of learning possible.

Redirection

If the teacher wants to introduce the pupils with various aspects of the problem in class room then he can ask the same question after slight changes in the language In class, the teacher tries to develop the reasoning power in the pupils by asking various questions. This enables the teacher to encourage the pupils for maximum participation.

Critical Awareness.

In order to develop the reasoning power of the pupils in class, the teacher can ask questions bearing ‘Why’, by getting motivate from such questions, pupils involve themselves in the process of reasoning. The questions bearing ‘Why’ and ‘How’ are asked. By asking such questions, the teacher can develop critical awareness in the pupils.

Guidelines for Classroom Questioning

Good questions should be carefully planned, clearly stated, and to the point in order to achieve specific objectives. Teacher understanding of questioning technique, wait time, and levels of questions is essential. Teachers should also understand that asking and responding to questions is viewed differently by different cultures. The teacher must be sensitive to the cultural needs of the students and aware of the effects of his or her own cultural perspective in questioning. In addition, teachers should realize that direct questioning might not be an appropriate technique for all students

Based on the foregoing findings from the research on classroom questioning, the following Recommendations are offered:

* Ask questions which focus on the salient elements in the lesson; avoid questioning students about extraneous matters.

* Incorporate questioning into classroom teaching/learning practices

* With older and higher ability students, ask questions before (as well as after) material is read and studied.

* Question younger and lower ability students only after material has been read and studied.

* When teaching students factual material, keep up brisk instructional pace, frequently posing lower cognitive questions.

* Ask a majority of lower cognitive questions when instructing younger and lower ability students. Structure these questions so that most of them will elicit correct responses

.* Ask a majority of higher cognitive questions when instructing older and higher ability students.

* In settings where higher cognitive questions are appropriate, teach students strategies for drawing inferences.

* Increase wait-time beyond three seconds when asking higher cognitive questions

* Keep  wait-time to about three seconds when conducting recitations involving a majority of lower cognitive questions?

* Be particularly careful to allow generous amounts of wait-time to students perceived as lower ability.

* Avoid vague or critical responses to student answers during recitations.

* During recitations, use praise sparingly and make certain it is sincere, credible, and directly connected to the students’ responses.

* Use redirection and probing as part of classroom questioning and keep these focused on salient elements of students’ responses.

Detailed instructions for teaching students to draw inferences.

The model offered by Pearson (1985) does provide some basic steps which can help students make connections between what they know and what they are seeking to learn. Pearson suggests that teachers complete all the steps in this process by way of demonstration, then gradually shift responsibility for all but the first step to the students.

1. Ask the inference question.

2. Answer it.

3. Find clues in the text to support the inference.

4. Tell how to get from the clues to the answer

Better pre-service training in the art of posing classroom questions, together with in-service training to sharpen teachers’ questioning skills, have potential for increasing students’ classroom participation and achievement. Increasing wait-time and the incidence of higher cognitive questions, in particular, have considerable promise for improving the effectiveness of classroom instruction.

Within these recitations, students follow a series of steps (consciously or unconsciously) in order to produce responses to the questions posed.

These steps include:

* Attending to the question

* Deciphering the meaning of the question

* Generating a covert response (i.e., formulating a response in one’s mind)

* Generating an overt response; and often

* Revising the response (based on teacher probing or other feedback)

PATTERN OF OBSERVATION SHEET FOR EVALUATION THE PROBING QUESTION SKILL

 

Component of Probing Questions Skill                   Frequencies(In minutes)

1  2  3  4  5  6

 

Prompting questions were asked.

Questions seeking further information were asked.

Refocusing questions were asked.

Redirection was done.

Questions to create critical awareness were asked.

Advantages of Questioning Strategies

Questions and questioning techniques influence learners’ achievement, attitudes, and thinking skills. The level of the question tends to obtain a similar level of answer. Achievement can improve if high levels of questions are accompanied by wait-time, redirection, and probing techniques.

One advantage of questioning strategies is they are flexible and widely applicable. They may be tailored to fit the needs of different subjects, various types of information, and different levels of competence.

Questioning strategies may be used by instructors and students alike. Students may use the strategies with the help of a facilitator or they may develop the skills on their own.

Among the instructional skills, questioning holds a place of prominence in many classrooms. When questioning is used well:

• A high degree of student participation occurs as questions are widely distributed;

• An appropriate mix of low and high level cognitive questions is used;

• Student understanding is increased;

• Student thinking is stimulated, directed, and extended;

• Feedback and appropriate reinforcement occur;

• Students’ critical thinking abilities are honed; and,

• Student creativity is fostered.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Dwight, and Ryan, Kevin. 1969. Microteaching. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Allen, Dwight, and Wang, Weiping. 1996. Microteaching. Beijing, China: Xinhua Press.

Allen, Mary E., and Belzer, John A. 1997. “The Use of Microteaching to Facilitate Teaching Skills of Practitioners Who Work with Older Adults.” Gerontology and Geriatrics Education 18 (2):77.

Bansal S and Maheshwari Rakhi .Teaching of English.R,Lall. Publishers.Meerut .India.

Borg, Walter R.; Kelley, Marjorie L.; Langer, Philip; and Gall, Meredith D. 1970. The Mini Course: A Microteaching Approach to Teacher Education. Beverly Hills, CA: Macmillan.

Brent, Rebecca; Wheatley, Elizabeth; and Thomson, W. Scott. 1996. “Videotaped Microteaching: Bridging the Gap from the University to the Classroom.” The Teacher Educator 31 (3):238.

Brown, George A. 1975. Microteaching: A Program of Teaching Skills. London: Methuen.

Gregory, Thomas B. 1972. Encounters with Teaching: A Microteaching Manual. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Maheshwari v.k and Bansal S..Technology of Teaching .R.Lall Publishers, Meerut India.

McGarvey, Brian, and Swallow, Derek. 1986. Microteaching in Teacher Education and Training. Dover, NH: Croom Helm.

McIntyre, Donald; Macleod, Gordon; and Griffiths, Roy. 1977. Investigations of Microteaching. London: Croom Helm.

Trott A. Microteaching: An Overview. London: Educational Media

International, 1976

Turney, Cliff; Cairns L.; Williams, G.; and Hatton, N. 1975. Sydney Micro Skills. Sydney: Sydney University Press.

Turney, Cliff; Clift, John C.; Dunkin, Michael J.; and Traill, Ronald D. 1973. Microteaching: Research, Theory and Practice. Sydney: Sydney University Press.

Vare, Jonathan W. 1994. “Partnership Contrasts: Microteaching Activity as Two Apprenticeships in Thinking.” Journal of Teacher Education 45 (3):209.

Wahba, Essam Hanna. 1999. “Microteaching.” Forum: A Journal for the Teacher of English outside the United States 37 (4):23.

Wilkinson, Gayle A. 1996. “Enhancing Microteaching through Additional Feedback from Preservice Administrators.” Teaching and Teacher Education 12 (2):211.

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Evaluation is a systematic planned inquiry undertaken in order to enable decision-makers to make judgments concerning the worth of an educational policy,or  project and to achieve certain aims and purposes. Evaluation can be a costly waste of time and effort, but when done efficiently, vigorously and with the intention of improving educational provision, it is likely to be worthwhile, for the new knowledge gained can be fed back into the system to improve what goes on in the name of education.

Teaching is an art. When a group evaluates art in a museum, the ratings and criteria can vary widely. The same is true when trying to effectively evaluate a teacher. While some things are quite straight forward and necessary, other intangibles can make a teacher more successful than their peers. Instead of trying to cram square pegged teachers into the round holes of the evaluation format, perhaps it is time to re-invent the evaluation format to include a broader interpretation of what good teaching might include.

WHY TEACHER  EVALUATION

INDIA’S National policy on Education (1986) states, “A system of teacher evaluation-open, participative and data-based-will be created and reasonable opportunities of promotion to higher grades provides. Norms of accountability will be laid down with incentives for good performance and distinctive for     non- performance”

The host of educational problems besetting schools today, such as pupil wastage in terms of drop-outs, and the low standard of education, all point directly or indirectly to the  instructional atmosphere in the  educational organizations. Often school enrolments fluctuate from year to year; many factors may account for this. It might be difficult for a head to explain such a phenomenon, let alone suggest solutions, unless some evaluation is conducted and the findings disseminated.

But before this can be done, we need reliable and objective data Through regular monitoring, evaluation and reporting we will know much better where we are and thus be able to decide what changes are needed to bring about improvement.

Teacher evaluations are often designed to serve two purposes: to measure teacher competence and to foster professional development and growth. A teacher evaluation system will give teachers useful feedback on classroom needs, and will provide the opportunity to learn new teaching techniques, so to make changes in their classrooms accordingly Thus the purpose of teacher evaluation in bringing about change for betterment is now widely recognized and accepted. The main aim of the evaluation is continuous improvement of the educational scenario. These evaluations are designed primarily to help an individual to become fully aware of the strengths and   short-comings. He should get feed- back in such a way that he finds it both insightful and helpful. There are at least four benefits of having an objective and systematic scheme of evaluation of individuals in an institution, namely, giving them feed back about their strengths and potentialities, developing sense of accountability motivating them to excel and developing a scheme of improvement of instructional Programme. The following are the specific purposes of teacher evaluation:

-                     Helping faculty to improve their performance.

-                     Making decisions about confirmation or extension of probation and promotion.

-                     Identifying the expertise of the faculty for deputation of conferences seminars, workshops and summer institutes and assignment of co-curricular activities.

-                     Conducting action research on the factors related to faculty performance.

The goal of the individuals must be compatible with the institutional goals if this system is to operate rationally and, therefore, there should be open and frequent discussions with entire faculty about “why evaluate”

FORMS OF TEACHER EVALUATION

Normally the teacher evaluation is of two types

1. Formative Evaluation

Evaluation that is used for the purpose of self-improvement is defined as “formative evaluation”. The teacher collects student and peer perceptions of teaching effectiveness solely for the purposes of modifying and enhancing teaching strategies.

2. Summative Evaluation

Evaluation for the purpose of making personnel decisions and for enhancing teaching effectiveness is defined as “summative evaluation”. Administrators evaluate data from students, peers, and the teacher in order to make informed decisions regarding reappointment, promotion and tenure,

THE TECHNIQUES OF EVALUATION

Evaluation involves making judgments about achievement in terms of set goals, but before you can pass judgment, you must pin-point an area of activity which you seek to evaluate and then seek information about it. Based on the information you have collected, you are then in a position to pass judgment on the quality of the activity, or the particular situation in relation to the criteria set.

Any or all of the following techniques may be used to gather information:

Observation of classes: This is a technique to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers and the overall teaching/learning environment in terms of physical facilities, for example, chalkboard, classroom seating arrangements, etc. We can also use this technique to check the pupils’ stationery/textbooks and the teachers’ classroom control.

Systematic reporting: This technique involves written reports or diaries on a daily or weekly basis written by pupils or teachers on, for example: chronic latecomers or absenteeism from school; the incidence of various acts of indiscipline in the school; or the quality of the co-curricular activities, etc

Questionnaires or checklists: These can be used by the head to obtain from pupils or teachers an assessment of various aspects of school life, for example: the standard of work of some specific teachers; the success of some innovations introduced to the school. It is particularly important not to try to evaluate too much at one time; instead focus on a relatively discrete and manageable topic.

Interviews: This is a technique whereby data and information is collected from pupils or staff through a face-to-face interview focusing on a specific issue.

Peer evaluation: Evaluation often seems to imply someone more senior evaluating the work of someone junior. Peer evaluation involves co-workers (heads, teachers or pupils) using the techniques described above to help each other.

Student evaluation ;the students are in a  central position to judge the success of  the teacher in the classroom. They are the main source of information about the accomplishment of important educational goals.

Discussion groups: This technique recognizes the views of different groups, such as teachers in different departments, school prefects, the various clubs and societies, in their evaluation of different aspects of school life.

WHAT TO EVALUATE

Here again, the co-operation between the principal and the faculty in devising a means for assessing the behaviors is essential. In addition to teaching effectiveness, innovativeness, the personal qualities, inter-personal relations with colleagues, the extent of institutional service, community or extension work and professional growth are also evaluated. Research has revealed some dimensions to differentiate between ‘best’ and ‘worst’ teachers. The following components of goal teaching were established by Hildebrandt, (1971):

1-         The first is the command of the subject. It is scholarship complex with learning/ specialization. Its component is ‘Analytic/Synthetic’.

2-         The second component is the quality of presentation – ability to make one self clear. This component is called ‘Organization/ Clarity’.

3-         The third component is rapport with the class and skill of controlling group interaction. This component is called ‘Instructor– Group Interaction’.

4-         The fourth component is one –to – one response. It can happen out side the class – room if the learner responds individually to the faculty. This we call ‘Instructor – Individual Student Interaction’.

5-         The fifth component is the flair and enthusiasm that awaken interest and stimulate response. He has a distinguished style, a sense of humor and      self – confidence. We call this component ‘Dynamism / Enthusiasm’.

INDICATORS FOR TEACHER EVALUATION

The following are the general indicators for teacher evaluation.

Quality of teaching:- Communication Power, Style,  Techniques and Class management etc.

Examination results: - Number   of    failures ,first  division holders  comparative performance in terms of first    second, third and failures with that of the last years.

Students attendance:-reflecting their attitude towards teacher’s                       performance.

Promoting Library Interest:- Giving reference of books Journals in the class, recommending books, journals for reading.

Relationship with students Helpfulness, encouragement, sincerity in dealing.

Academic growth Update with latest development in subject Acquisition of additional qualifications. Membership of professional societies.  Books reviewed.

Innovativeness Try new teaching ideas. Develop special teaching materials. Shows effort for upgrading the quality of teaching.

Extension Developing contacts with parents and community    member effort for inculcating school-community relations.  Contribution to social services in national calamities.

Co-curricular Activities Participation in organizing school functions, student   Welfare activities, counseling centre, games hobbies etc.

HOW TO EVALUATE

How to use evaluation so that incentives and distinctive are related with the performance/ non- performance?. To achieve these goals, evaluators must first set specific procedures and standards. The standards should

* relate to important teaching skills,

* be as objective as possible

* be linked to the teacher’s professional development.

Some procedures evaluators can use are to:

* Observe classroom activities. This is by far the most common form of data collection for evaluation. The goal of class observations is to obtain a representative sample of a teacher’s performance in the classroom. . Observations can be formal and planned or informal and unannounced. .

* Review lesson plans and classroom records. Lesson plans can reflect how well a teacher has thought through instructional goals. Looking at classroom records, such as tests and assignments, can indicate how well a teacher has linked lesson plans, instruction, and testing.

* Expand the number of people involved in the evaluations. Peer and student evaluations, if schools administer them properly, can also benefit teachers.

Evaluation is a systematic process through which certain decisions are arrived at based on a number of collected facts about the object to be evaluated. Now if teacher is the object, who can be in a better position to evaluate him, but the persons, with whom he is interacting, representing his immediate environment. There are four recognized sources of evaluation. The self. head, peer and , students

SELF EVALUATION

Self-evaluation is often considered as the best mode of evaluation. Each faculty member completes a Performa about his expected performance at the beginning of the academic session and then at the close of the session, he fills up another Performa showing actual performance. Another procedure instrument that is being completed by his peers or students discrepancies can thus be noted on the one hand, between his/her own rating and the ratings he desires of himself/ herself, and on the other hand between his own rating and ratings of others. This procedure is useful for personal growth as well as for instructional development.

Often, rating techniques are applied for this purpose which mainly focuses upon the following areas:

General- Classroom management and discipline.

Subject- Presentation and teaching skills, working habits.

Competence- Dependability and record keeping.

Personal Characteristics - Punctuality, tact, voice, co-operation, sense of humor

initiative and personal fitness.

Human Relation-    Human relations with students, other faculty members  principal and the community.

Professional Growth- Professional conduct, research and publication.

The multiplicity of instruments and sources for collecting data on the side increases the validity of teacher evaluation program . The results need to be reported in an appropriate, accurate and timely manner to determine its usefulness.

One of the first decisions is to be made is whether the data are to be tabulated and summarized or simply returned in their original form. If data is returned as it is the teachers tend to concentrate either on the negative/positive feedback with little attention paid to the representativeness of that feedback. How accurately and meaningfully the results are interpreted and used depend on the type of information provided to the teachers. Some of the researchers have revealed a definite positive response bias, which can be counteracted by the use of comparative data resulting in a  more accurate and meaningful interpretation. Qualitative judgments can also be provided to the teacher by identifying mean intervals in the comparative data, which can be defined as representing levels of excellence or needed improvement by depending on where the particular teacher in question stands relatively in various aspects of performance areas.

 

EVALUATION BY THE HEAD

In all the hierarchical and bureaucratic organizations it is the superior or the boss who evaluates the subordinates. The evaluation is based on information’s collected from other sources as well. Principal’s role comprises direct observation and personal source of evaluative evidence. He should shift, analyze and integrate the information from other sources- teachers, students, parents. It may include number and levels and kinds of classes taught, number of students, out of class activities related to teaching, ability to shape new courses, course out lines and tests materials used in classroom teaching, attendance, teaching style and publications.

The following considerations can be helpful for evaluating teacher performance by head of the institution;

Knowledge of Content Knowledge of Age Group Clarity of Goals Balance of Resources for Teaching Goals Resources for Students Learning Activities Materials & Resources Instructional Groups Lesson and Unit Structure Criteria and Standards Assessment Matches Goals Assessment Used for Planning

The following observation schedule  can be quite helpful for evaluating teacher performance by any head of the institution;

Criteria Status      1 Relationship with other academic staff Excellent -  Good  Fair   Poor   2 Relationship with administrative staff – Excellent -  Good  Fair   Poor   3 Relationship with pupils Excellent  – Good  Fair   Poor   4 Superior-subordinate relationship – Excellent   Good  Fair   Poor   5 Oriented to the goals of the school  -Excellent   Good  Fair   Poor 6 Acceptance of responsibility – Excellent   Good  Fair   Poor   7 Allocation of time Excellent -  Good  Fair   Poor   8 Communication skills Excellent -  Good  Fair   Poor   9 Ability to motivate others Excellent  – Good  Fair   Poor   10 Participation in co-curricular activities Excellent – Good  Fair   Poor EVALUATION BY PEERS The judgment about teaching requires, among other things, a thorough knowledge of the discipline i.e. the substance of teaching, what is taught, its accuracy, currency, sophistication, depth and the level of learning it fosters. Faculty peers are qualified to judge the substance of teaching as it has two distinctive requirements – their knowledge of the discipline being taught provides the background against which comparison can occur and their long training in the evaluation of evidence enables them to weigh what is revealed. They can be reliable source of information about teaching materials, syllabi coverage and course content. They can also be a source of information about research, scholarly publications and professional activities. However, once it is accepted as a means of improving instruction, peer evaluation can be conducted on either a formal or informal basis Evaluation by peers should have broader coverage dealing with questions like; what is the quality of the material used in teaching? What kind of intellectual tasks were set by the teacher for the students and how did the students perform/ How this instructional goals? To what extent is the teacher striving for excellence in teaching etc.?

 

For reviews of teaching, the peer reviewers may be colleagues of any rank mutually agreed upon by the faculty member and the department head or academic administrator, . The peer reviewers may be selected from inside or outside the department. In small departments or in highly specialized disciplines, it may be difficult to find colleagues who can provide the required insights within the same department.

The development of an instrument(s) for documenting peer evaluations of teaching effectiveness is a departmental responsibility. However, the instrument used in the evaluation must contain the general requirements specified below.

- The instrument must address the wide range of strategies, media and materials used in achieving learning objectives.

- The instrument must include categories such as instructor organization, instructional strategies, choice of content, mastery of content, presentation skills, instructional materials and/or media, interaction with students and additional items appropriate for laboratory, clinic, studio or field settings.

- The instrument must include a section for comments and other observations relevant to the discipline or type of class. Examples of peer evaluation instruments, including some for distance education courses, may be found in references listed in related information above.

EVALUATION BY STUDENTS

If peers are in an advantageous position to assess the substance of teaching, the students are in a better if not the best position to judge how successful is the teacher in the classroom. They are the main source of information about the accomplishment of important educational goals, such as the development of motivation for continued learning and areas of rapport, degrees of communication and the existence of problems between instructors and students. This information can help teacher as well as educational researchers describe and define the learning environment more correctly and objectively than they could through other types of measurements.

When deciding on the content of the items, one should determine which elements of the course, of the instruction, and of the learning are to be addressed. Questions constructed for the course area should address its organization, structure objectives, difficulty, pace relevance, content usefulness etc. Questions constructed for the instruction area should address instructor characteristics, instructor skill clarity of presentation, instructor rapport, method of presentation, student interaction etc. Finally questions constructed for the learning areas should address students satisfaction, student perceived competency, student desire to study etc.

The following Performa can be used for Teacher evaluation by students.

Teacher’s name: ________________________

Your name:____________________________

The number rating stands for the following: 1 = rarely 2 = sometimes 3 = most of the time.

Circle the answer that fits with your experience of this teacher for each item.

1 Teacher is prepared for class. 123

2 Teacher knows his/her subject. 123

3 Teacher is organized and neat. Properly dressed 123

4 Teacher manages the time well Teacher plans class time and assignments that help students to problem solve and think critically. 123

5  Teacher is flexible in accommodating for individual student needs. 123

6.Teacher has clear classroom procedures so students don’t waste time. 1 2 3

7 Teacher grades fairly. 123

8 Teacher is clear in giving directions and on explaining what is Expected  on assignments and tests. 123

9 Teacher returns homework in a timely manner.  Gives good feedback on homework and projects123

10 Teacher provides activities that make subject matter meaningful. Teacher is creative in developing activities and lessons. 123

11 Teacher encourages students to speak up and be active in the classroom learning123

12 How well does the teacher model the core values through how he/she behaves with students and with other staff persons123

13Teacher follows through on what he/she says.You can count on the teacher’s     word. 123

14Teacher’s words and actions match.  I trust this teacher.123

15 Teacher listens and understands students’ point of view; he/she

may not agree, but students feel understood. 123

16 Teacher respects the opinions and decisions of students. 123

17 Teacher is willing to accept responsibility for his/her own mistakes.123

18Teacher is willing to learn from students.123

19Teacher is sensitive to the needs of students. Teacher helps you when you ask for help.  123

20Teacher is fun to be with. 123

21 Teacher likes and respects students.123

22 Teacher tries to model what teacher expects of students. 123

23 Teacher is consistent and fair in discipline Teacher is fair and firm in discipline without being too strict. 123

What is one thing that your teacher does well?

What is one thing that you can suggest to help this teacher improve?

REPORTING THE RESULT OF EVALUATION

A post-observation conference can give teachers feedback on their strengths and weaknesses. Evaluators must remember to:

* deliver the feedback in a positive and considerate way;

* offer ideas and suggest changes that make sense to the teacher;

* maintain a level of formality necessary to achieve the goals of the evaluation;

After identifying the instructional strengths and weaknesses, teachers can use the information to plan an improvement strategy and the administration.

CRITICAL APPRAISALOF TEACHER EVALUATION PROGRAMME

Teacher evaluation, in fact, should be continuous process in schools and possibly may form a basis for  rewards and punishments in the broadest sense of the expression. Closure of probation period, confirmation, appointment to selection grade, promotion, permission to cross the efficiency bar, deputation to in-service courses/workshops/seminars, entrusting additional responsibilities etc may be linked to teacher evaluation provided teachers willingly accept it and co-operate with the programmer of teacher-evaluation. Its main purpose is, however to discriminate with a view to initiating staff development programme, the better teachers from the average ones and the latter from the below average.

Teachers view evaluation with mixed emotions. Some are unalterably hostile to it, others are disillusioned with existence practices, and many feel uncertain and often threatened about rating procedures that are administratively conceived designed and implemented. They feel that, at least, rating is a neutral process and at worst is probably detrimental to the individual’s welfare, especially if their primary purpose is to categories competencies into scaled classification

Experienced teachers often state that evaluations are not productive. Some of this dissatisfaction is based on experiences which can be avoided:

* Teachers not having any input into the evaluation criteria. . This leads teachers to distrust the evaluation process and to question the validity of the results it produces.

* Evaluators not spending enough time on the evaluation. Teachers complain that the principal, or whoever is conducting the evaluation, does not have the time to gather quality information and provide useful feedback. .

* Evaluators not being well trained  Even worse, many have had little or no recent experience in the classroom. The criteria for evaluations are often vague, subjective, and inconsistent. This robs the evaluator of the credibility needed to carry out an effective evaluation.

* Results of evaluations not being used to further teacher development. For many teachers, the evaluation process can be a dead end. The results do not figure into salary increases

AFTER ANALYSING THE POSITIVE AND NEGATVE DIMENSIONS the question arises, why it is that successful evaluation procedure are difficult to achieve. Much of the difficulty arises when the purpose of evaluation process is not clear or when the process is nothing more than an inspection for rating purpose. Difficulty also stems from an uncertainty about the focal point of assessment, should the focus be on individual as a person or on the results of his efforts. Evaluators may not be skilled and perceptive in making observations and judgments may be inconclusive and superficial.

But improved performance is achieved in several ways: self endeavor, helpful supervision, a stimulating learning environment, optimum quantities of learning materials and a supportive climate. Systematic evaluation is only one means of stimulating improvement.

It is well, however, to remember the individuality of expecting that a composite design of evaluation will satisfy every human need and all the requirements of all school system. Variations in the size and complexity of school systems, different leadership styles of principals and varying needs of individual teachers require flexibility in applying evaluation procedures.

The initial step-in evaluation is the identification of matters on which emphasis should be placed to enable the individual to be more effective as a result of the evaluation. Diagnosis of these needs is an endeavor shaped by both the person being appraised and the evaluator, but ideas on can also come from clients: students and parents.

Once needs are identified, it becomes possible to decide how best to respond to them. Response options may range from in formal, unstructured endeavor to the forming of very specific performance objectives and plans of action to attain them. The implementation of a plan of action takes place during the span of time in which evaluation occurs and consists of the interactions between those involved in the process. Included are observations, feedback, interim and check up conferences.

If the purpose of an evaluation is absolutely clear it is more likely that the correct information will be gathered to enable conclusions to be drawn and recommendations made as a basis for decision-making. It is therefore very important that after an evaluation is done one or more meetings between the evaluation team and the rest of the staff are held, during which the findings can be discussed

The assessment of results should also be a co-operative endeavor. Both the evaluate and the evaluator assess the extent to which objectives have been attained. Effectiveness of overall performance in major areas of responsibility is assessed by the evaluator. The possibilities for improvement are greater if evaluation is a regular, required process, follow-through is conscientious and consistent, and results are forthrightly assessed. Evaluation actually should be regarded as diagnostic process, enabling individuals and their evaluators to focus an appropriate objective which, if accomplished, will produce better and more effective services. Evaluation is a means, not an end. It can and should produce feedback that can be used to alter programmed techniques and strategies.

Teacher evaluations can be a positive experience for both the teacher and the evaluator. The challenge for evaluators is to make the evaluation process a meaningful experience, not simply an empty exercise

REFERENCES-

1. Dressel Paul D., “Handbook of Academic Evaluation Francisco: 2006.
2. Lacey C., “Issues in Evaluation and Accountability”, London:Mathuen, 2001.
3. Robertson, W.E., “Educational Accountability through Evaluation”, New Jersey: Educational Technology, 1996.
4. Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt. of India, National Policy on Education, 1986.
5. Willey, M.M., “Self-study Manual for Indian Universities and Colleges,” New Delhi, Ford Foundation, 1968.
6. .Galluzzo, Gary R. (1987) “Assessment of Teaching Skills of
7. Lawrence M. Rudner, Ed. U.S. Department ofEducation, Washington, D.C., ED 284 867.
8. Stiggins, Richard J.; Bridgeford, Nancy J. (Spring 1985)
9. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. vol. 7, no. 1

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.”
― Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Marxism is the most powerful competitor of religious philosophies It is true that its rapid spread is due, to some extent, to the use of force. Every student of history is well aware that ideas are not accepted because of force alone. Therefore, an understanding of the ideological roots of Marxism is most necessary.

Philosophical Rationale of Marxism

Metaphysical position

Concept of Self-

Karl Marx made it clear that “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life” and what he meant by life was actual living everyday material activity

Marxism’s descriptive title, Dialectical Materialism, indicates that has source of all life is found in matter,. “ Man, , is purely a product of nature, and not a  result of any force outside nature. In reality , he is not even a product of evolution, but of his own making. man is a productive animal. Matter and productivity are the two key concepts relating to man’s nature. His need for clothing, shelter, sex are purely material needs modified by a desire for social acceptance. But basically it is change in material conditions which effects changes in man’s ideas, views, and conceptions.”

Marxism rejects mind-body or spirit-matter dualism as an interpretation of man’s behavior. The origin of life, the reality of death have no bearing on and are not related to any supernatural order but are delicate and complex forms of matter. Mind itself is simply a product of matter.. Thus, in religion, man projects his natural needs into the realm of the spiritual (or supernatural) hoping to obtain satisfaction from such projection.

Man’s personality is not of his own making but a product of social forces and the tensions of the class struggle. Marx says : “In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will …. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but , on the  contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness…The individual man’s true freedom is achieved when he adjusts to the “collective will of the people.” The best expression of individual freedom is realized when the person knows he must act according to the laws of the collectivism and actually follows these laws .The educators of the Communist countries place a premium on thinking and acting with the collective mind and will.

In summary, the Marxist’s  basic belief about the nature of man includes the following: (1) man is a purely material being with an natural origin and destiny; (2) man is not composed of body and mind or body and soul – mind is simply a complex function of the material body; (3) man possesses no personal or individual freedom but find this freedom in following the collective will of “the people” (party); (4) all knowledge of man’s nature is derived from scientific sources. Philosophy and theology yield no valid knowledge about man’s essence; (5) the science of man is subsumed under the science of society; that is, one cannot speak of the science of man but of men.

In theory, Marxist agree that society creates individuals and that individuals will change as society changes. The Marxists, unlike traditional philosophers, believe that the state in not a natural institution, but on which arose in society when social classes began to form. Certain classes created the state as a means of protecting what they had acquired against the attempts, on the part of those who did not have any private property, to restore ownership to all the members of society. The state, then, is a creation of the greedy “haves, “ to maintain their ownership of the means of predicting wealth.

This promise of perfect happiness on earth is perhaps the point which had the greatest appeal to the downtrodden, impoverished masses.. Why should man wait for life after death to see justice done? It could never be verified by experience that wrong doers received their just deserts or that those who lived in misery and sorrow would receive comfort and joy in the afterlife. Therefore, build a perfectly classless society – one that will supply all the needs and want of man here on earth. Then man can forget the myth of heaven.

Philosophy of Change

Engels compared Marx  to Darwin. Darwin, he said, discovered the laws of biological change; Marx, the laws of change applied to historical development of human kind. Further, they insist upon the inevitability of change in human events because of the “dialectic of history.” This view, of course, is an adaptation of the well known Hegelian triad : thesis-antithesis-synthesis.  It is an adaptation of Hegel since his world was a spiritual or mental one whereas Marx’s world is purely material.

In dialectical materialism the Marxist use dialectic to explain the changes of the past and predict the events of the future in all areas, politics, economics, and education. But these changes are gradual and the new forms always contain some of the old.. Marxists apply the same dialectic to social institutions accordingly (1) The social institution in existence (thesis); (2) the human needs and demands which this institution produces (antithesis); (3) the new social institution which arises because of the relation and interaction of the existing social institutions and the human needs and demands it produced (synthesis ) .In summary, , the Marxist view involves the following beliefs about change:

• The physical and biological realms are in a state of constant flux. These states are guided by the dialectical process which leads them inevitably from one stage of development to another.
• The social, political, economic, and educational realms, too, are changing according to the rules of the dialectic. One type of structure must give way inevitably to another until the final synthesis is realized.
• All change is gradual, and at time imperceptible, since every new synthesis contains elements of the previous thesis and antithesis.
• The only thing that does not change is the schema of development – the dialectical process according to which change takes place.

Concept of God / Religion-

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” 

. Marxists deny belief in any form of religion. a spiritual intoxicant used by the oppressors to keep the workers in slavery. Religion, they averred, was used to keep the worker passive and patient in the acceptance of his unhappy lot by promising him a reward in the hereafter. “The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.”― Karl Marx

The next line of attack concentrates on removing the indirect influence coming from the cultural heritage of the past. Museums, libraries, textbooks, and the like are purged of any religious influence. In place of these influences, Marxists enthrone atheistic and materialistic values designed to fill the void left by the removal of religious values.

Since religion is a reality in all cultures Marxists need some way of explaining its presence in society. Marx believed that religion was simply an immature way of dealing with production and consumption of goods in the different types of societies. Engels felt that primitive men could not explain certain phenomena of their own experience, such as dreams, thought, and sensation, and hence placed the source of these activities in a spiritual soul. Since these activities were not bodily they would not die with the body, but live on. Thus, arose the idea of immortality of the soul. The idea of God evolved from the personification of natural forces which ignorant men could not explain by natural means. Eventually, by rationalistic (nonscientific) means, the belief in one God was created by men.

Epidemiological Position of Marxism

The philosophy of Marxism is not overly concerned with theory of knowledge. For the Marxist, the nature or origin of truth, the modes of knowing are not major problems. However, the Marxist view on some major issues in the theory of knowledge is available.

First, knowing does not consists in an apprehension of the “thing in itself,” but rather a grasp of the things as it exists for us. McFadden interprets the knowing process of Marxist epistemology as a combination of active and passive aspect of mind. On the one hand, the outside world acts upon man’s sense organs and thus provides a continual flow of stimuli to the knowing organism. On the other hand, the mind itself, since it is an integral part of the world (matter), partakes of the same active nature as the world and it self active in the knowing process.. In the process of acquiring knowledge, man is simultaneously changed by the knowledge he acquires changes the world by the knowledge acquired. To understand the world, the know er must perceive the relations which exist among the things of the of the real world and between himself and these external objects.

Therefore Marxist theory of knowledge cannot be classified as either realistic or idealistic but rather as a mixture of both. Consequently truth can never be objective or absolute for its is a “relative experience” which does not have set laws. If this be the case it is easy to understand why the “truths” contained in textbooks are frequently changed by Marxists.

There seems to be no doubt that Marxists have placed a priority on the scientific mode of knowing and understandably so, since in this age of science such knowledge gives power. In fact any knowledge which does not give power to its possessor is  not worthy of the name.

Lenin himself held “that the only path to truth is science which hold the materialist point of view.”Because of the major role science plays in Marxist school one might be led to believe the radical empiricism is the only epidemiological position amenable to Marxists. Such, however, is not the case, for there is a strong stain of rationalism within the system. This rationalistic strain is derived from the Hegelian notion of mind as both the source and unifying principle of experiences. This structure, which itself is a result of his formalized “dialectic”, presumes that the world is inexorable moving through the three states, thesis antithesis, and synthesis

Axiological Position of Marxism

Marxists have been somewhat ambivalent in their acceptance or rejection of traditional beliefs. In the areas of curriculum and methodology, they have reinstated much from prerevolutionary times In the realm of values, Marxism holds many of the ancient beliefs such as patriotism, love and respect for parents and elders, honesty, and distributive justice.

In spite of the many statement that Marxists have no concern for values (especially moral values) a perusal of Communist technical and educational literature reveals that more attention it paid to the moral behavior of the “faithful Communist” than any other aspect of life. The school, for example, is given the major responsibility for developing “ethical character” in pupils so that they will be law-abiding, productive citizens of the communities in which they live. Only by living the good life can they contribute to the ultimate triumph of Marxism. It is true that the leaders of Marxism rejected the traditional foundation of morality and subordinated all value theory to the interests of the working class in its struggle against the oppressors.

Ethical Values

It is well known that, shortly after the Bolshevik revolution, the Marxists threw out all the moral standards of pre-revolutionary days. In most respects, this attitude is true of all revolutionary movements including that of progressiveness in American education. “Do away with vestiges of the old regime” is the cry of the revolutionary. In so doing, they “throw out the baby with the bath.” But it does not take very long for the folly of such an attitude to become evident, even to the leaders of the revolution

Moral Character –

A person with proper moral training is one who subordinates all his actions, interests, and desires to the service of the Communist state and the “People.” In order to achieve this perfect moral state, the child must learn to hate all that is contrary to the principles. Furthermore, the morally perfect Communist must be willing to sacrifice everything, including his life, to defend the doctrines of Communism.

One of the first moral principles children must learn is the respect for public property. Teachers should inculcate this principle by using stories from history but, above all, by example. If neither of these approaches succeeds in convincing the pupil, the teacher must use force to convince him of his error. The child should not be allowed to harm others by his lack of conformity to rules demanding respect for public property.

Respect for authority is another moral principle which children must learn early in life. This respect is not to be based upon fear of punishment  for, as Anton Makarenko says, cruelty begets cruelty in children. Rather, the child should learn to respect the authority of the teacher and others because these people have been helpful, understanding, fair, and firm. “True authority is founded on the making of reasonable demands on the child, combined with respect for his personality, devotion to his interests, ability to help him, clarity, firmness of educational purposes, and worthiness of personal example.”

Sex Morality –

After the Russian revolution, the Communists, in their eagerness to discard all ties with “bourgeois morality”, went on a free-love binge unparalleled in modern history. The Marxist penchant for order and discipline, however, soon made such a course untenable. Also Marx himself rejected the communization of sex relations by considering such a view as the point of “infinite degradation” of the humanized man. It represents, to his mind, a state in which man seeks to satisfy his biological animal needs rather than social needs. After all, it is the expression of social needs and their fulfillment which humanizes man.

Patriotism –

The development of good moral character is essential to Communist philosophy, but these virtues must be expressed in an unwavering devotion to the motherland. This devotion begins with love of parents, relatives and friends, the local community, and local environs. From. These immediate attachments the child can be led to an ardent devotion to the Communist party and the great prophets of Communism and a passionate hatred of their enemies.

Another aspect of the moral virtue of patriotism rests on the pride all good citizens must manifest in the achievements of Communism in the areas of production, politics, economics, art, and education. This pride should extend to those of the worker’s parties throughout the world in the battle for the destruction of capitalism.

Yet another by product of the virtue of patriotism is heroism. This virtue is expressed in bravery on the battlefield as well as in the efforts put forth to bring about the triumph of Communism throughout the world:

Finally, the student must demonstrate his patriotism by deeds, the most important of which is realized in his mastery of military skills of all kinds.

Love and Respect for Parents, Elders, and All Workers-

As mentioned above, patriotism is based upon the immediate attachment to parents, friends, relatives, and local environment. But the love of persons is a value worth cultivation for its own sake.

Education must play the important part in fostering love and respect for people. Children should be taught these noble sentiments through literature, good example, and the practice of manners expressing in word and deed the true essence of these basic values. Children should never be allowed to get away wilderness or disobedience toward parents, elders and teachers or one another. This kind of behavior is “capitalistic” and unbecoming to socialist youth of good character. However, in teaching love and respect, the negative aspects should not be overemphasized. Rather, proper training will result in the positive virtue of responsibility

Another aspect of developing respect for persons in found in the respect for truth and contempt for lying. From early childhood, children should learn to tell the truth and refrain from cheating and lying not only because these acts harm other but because they destroy the person’s own integrity. If he has made a mistake, the child should admit it and bear the responsibility for his own errors.

The Common Good -

The common good is ranked high among moral values inculcated in Marxist countries The first steps toward the full realization of this abstract good are found in comradeship and friendship. Comradeship is developed in “community of interest and action.” Sharing, cooperation, discharging social obligations, respect for school property, group work and play, coeducational projects, all are specific applications of the broader virtue, cultivation of the common good .Friendship is a more intimate and personal relationship between persons. But is should never be permitted to displace cooperation between all members of the collective. The priority of cooperation for the common good over personal friendship is emphasized by the strong pressure brought to bear upon youth to participate actively

The Value of Labor –

The Marxist believes that the true value of any object is to be measured by the amount labor which has been expended in its production. Labor, then, is not be viewed as something distasteful or burdensome. On the contrary, in Communist countries work is conceived as an expression, the highest aspiration of the human person. It is a matter of “honor, glory, valor, and heroism.” It offers man the opportunity to serve his fellowman, thus promoting the common good. This Communist attitude towards labor is closely entwined with the values of discipline, patriotism, the common good, love of one’s fellow worker, and Communist morality in general. Some Marxists, in reality, consider the communist view of labor as the highest value in the hierarchy of values.

Aesthetic Values

In the field of aesthetics, the great interest and productivity of the people of Communist countries in the fine arts puts the American to shame.The handling of the artist and the development of a theory of art presented One group of extremist demanded that all art works, especially literature, preach the party line. In other words, the arts should be considered as vehicles of Communist doctrines and no deviation from these doctrines should be tolerated. The more moderate group, which included Trotsky and Bukharin felt that the arts could thrive only when the artist is given sufficient freedom to produce creative works; creativity is stifled if the artist is made to produce according to political specifications. The engineer, the agricultural expert, and the economist could be bound by Communist doctrines but the artist could not be so bound. Of course, the artist could never be permitted to use his art as a political weapon against the revolution.

In summary, the following generalizations about Communist axiology are offered:

• All values are rooted in the class struggle of the proletariat against the oppressing classes.

• The ultimate source of values is not found outside the realm of socialistic human experience.

• The criterion of values is depicted best by the dictum, “What ever aids Communism is good; whatever hinders it is evil.”

• Values are in a state of flux since each new synthesis will create new values.

• All values must reflect devotion to the party, its leaders, and the motherland.

• All values must develop the love esteem for labor so essential for the triumph of Communism over capitalism.

Marxism in Education

Indeed, education is the most powerful weapon, even more powerful than the sword, for the spread of Marxism

Marxists make education a tool of the state in initiating youth to the requisites of a classless society. Teaching methods are centered around the teacher rather than the student, with the lecture-recitation-test pattern predominating. The curricular content is determined exclusively by the needs of the Communist society, with heavy emphasis on training in those skills necessary for making dedicated, intelligent workers, capable of transforming an agrarian economy into a strong modern society. Discipline is essential, and students are taught the value of co-operative labor, respect for authority and the goods of the state.

The educational implication of the Marxist doctrines on the nature of man and society are evident to the world. The denial of man’s dual nature explicitly affect teaching methods, curricular content, and educational objectives. The belief that man is a product of society is evident in all the formal and informal educational activities emphasizing group allegiance, cooperativeness, and conformity. The doctrines of the desirability of dictatorship of the proletariat as the means of achieving a classless (economic) society are both preached and practice in the schools.

Aims  of Education

Unlike their American counterparts who can agree upon no ultimate goal, Communist educators are in perfect accord that the ultimate purpose of education is “strengthening the communistic  state and the building of a Classless society.” All other objectives are subsidiary. This central aim supplies the rationale for the curriculum, teaching methods, teacher-pupil freedom and discipline in the schools, which agency shall have responsibility for education, and who shall be educated.

It is worth noting that this ultimate aim of education is derived from and is wholly in harmony with the Marxist conception of change and morality. All changes is directed toward achieving a classless society in the Communist millennium: Communist morality also has the same end insofar as the criterion of all morality is the extent to which behavior contributes to or detracts from the attainment of a classless society.

Any method or technique which detracts from this central concept is unacceptable any or technique which fosters it is highly desirable. Obviously, the classroom teacher needs some “down-to-earth” objectives as guides for his daily lessons. One can locate some of the proximate goals which guide the teacher.

• The development of knowledge in the academic areas such as mathematics, science, foreign language, and history. But knowledge or science for its own sake must be abhorred. All knowledge has a social purpose, the service of the state.
• Competence in those vocational fields for which the greatest demand exists, such as technology and agriculture.
• Respect for public property. Great emphasis is placed on this objective since youth are inclined to be careless with things which do not belong to them
• Development of good health habits. Youth can be of little service to society if they are not physically fit..
• Training of the will of students so that they will understand and conform to party discipline for the good of socialist society.
• Development of habits of industriousness which will motivate the person to put forth maximum effort for the common good.
• . Creation of a courageous spirit in ever Communist to enable him to fight for Communist to enable him to fight for Communism and against capitalism in both hot and cold wars. D
• . The promotion and spread of atheism in Communist lands and throughout the world. Only when men’s minds are freed from the superstitions of theism with all its capitalistic connotations will they be freed for the work of international Communism.
• Development of aesthetic perception to enable the student to distinguish the beautiful and the harmonious from the ugly and the vulgar.
• Acquisition of habits governing manners, dress, and social behavior.
• . Developing “initiative and independent thought” in harmony with the goal of Marxist-Leninist ideology.

This rather lengthy list of educational objectives should dispel the notion that schools in Communist countries are narrowly academic. In fact, since the Khrushchev era, Soviet educators have been openly critical of the intellectualistic goals of education during the Stalin era. The Communist conceives  the role of the school as one which should develop the “whole child,” not merely his intellectual powers.

Concept of Student

The equalization of educational opportunity is one aspect of the Communist program which has been most successful. The achievements of the Communists in making the benefits of education available to all at little or no cost to the individual have been the more startling since prior to the revolution education in those countries was limited to the upper socioeconomic classes. All citizens have the “guaranteed” right to free, universal, compulsory primary and secondary education. Those citizens who have talents which make them greater service to the state are assured of higher and professional education by a system of scholarships which include the cost of schooling, materials, room and board and a stipend, recreation, travel and the like. For those who are not able to pass the entrance examinations for the universities and professional schools a multiplicity of technical institutes and adult-education programs is available to all who wish to enroll. The communists boast that their free educational programs cover the span from the cradle to the grave.

Concept of Teacher

The teacher’s role in habit formation is crucial according to Marxist  educational theorists. First, the teacher teaches more by example than by precept (especially with younger children). In all his word and actions the teacher must be a perfect example of the ideal Communist so that his pupils will emulate him. The teacher who does not reflect true Soviet recognition of the power of good example, children are expected to attend nursery schools when they are three years old. At this tender age a well-disciplined cadre of Communist teachers can mold the personality of the child to fit the pattern of behavior drawn up by the leaders of the party.

Instructional Methodology

Marx made no specific recommendations for teaching school children. Nor did the early leaders of the revolution concern themselves with such matters. During the educational chaos, which followed the revolution, educators tried all kinds of methods, exerting special care to avoid using methods in vogue prior to the “people’s liberation.” For a time they eve gave serious thought to adapting progressive method to the schools. But this experiment was short-lived since progressive methods granted too much freedom to pupils failed to “discipline them” in obedience and conformity.

Instructors in polytechnic institutes use a great variety of methods (even the lecture-recitation method is still employed); both group and individual techniques are used. In the industrial arts classes – which they try to keep to fifteen students – the teacher states the aim of he course, lectures to the students o the theory of the machine, etc., and demonstrates the processes involve. When the students begin working on the machines the class is divided into smaller groups and their work is closely supervised by the instructor. The teachers use audio-visual aids and texts when available. Whenever possible individual instruction is used (and this method seems to be the most popular among polytechnic instructor). The teacher explains and demonstrates the process to each student and then observes the student’s work. This procedure is repeated until the student masters the skill. As standard manual serves as a guide for both teacher and student. In most respect the methods and materials of Soviet polytechnic education are quite similar to those used in this country.

At the university level, the lecture method is used almost exclusively. Of course,  in the sciences, laboratory work plays an important role in the teaching-learning process.

Underlying the externals of the methods described above, one finds the theoretical basis for all methodology in Communist schools, namely discipline., Discipline ranks high in the family of values which make up Communist morality. It seems correct to say that Communist educators are not overly concerned with teaching methods or techniques. Any method or techniques is acceptable so long as it contributes to the general aim of producing a disciplined member of the collective

One final theoretical consideration in connection with teaching methods is the relationship that exists between method and habit formation. The building of good habits which will make the student an effective member of the collective appears to be a primary goal of all teaching methods. Early in his school career the pupil must from habits that will enable him to perform most actions without having to ponder over them. By so dong he will “free himself” for more significant tasks. But a person who has been properly adjusted to life in the collective must be able to put aside old habits and acquire new one when those in authority or the situation call for a change. Thus a university student will have to abandon some habits he acquired in the university collective when he becomes a member of the armed forces. This change will call for a relatively quick removal of some habits and a rapid acquisition of new habits. “Adjustment to the collective” is a habit which all good Communists should possess.

The educators insist that creative potentialities in children be developed from their early school days. Group games and socially useful activities are considered excellent means of developing initiative. Teachers are encouraged to be alert for suggestions from children regarding excursions, holiday plans, assemblies, and club organizations. All of these will develop creative abilities and leadership qualities in youth.

Secondary school pupils do a few individual projects in the sciences and in the applied sciences such as agriculture and technology. It appears that the greatest opportunity for self-expression and activities related to pupil interests is afforded by the extensive programs outside school. Such extracurricular activities are under the direction of experienced teachers and often result in spectacular creative works by the pupils.. Rewards, such as certificates of merits and medals, are awarded to those students who produce outstanding work in extracurricular and class activities. Teachers encourage students to go beyond the basic requirements set down for all pupils.

The Curriculum

Since the school is the arm of the state, indoctrination in Communist ideology has a predominant place in the curriculum at all educational levels. At the University of Moscow, even a student specializing in physics must take three courses in Communist doctrine: Foundations of Marxism- Leninism, Political Economy, and Dialectical and Historical Materialism. All students in teacher –education programs, regardless of their specialty, must take History of the Communist Party., Political Economy, and Dialectical and Historical Materialism. Also, all courses in the humanities and social sciences, especially history, serve a political purpose. In the elementary and secondary schools (the ten-years school), indoctrination in Marxist ideology in integrated in the classes in history, literature, and geography. More significant perhaps than actual course at this level of education are the indirect means of political indoctrination effected through the program of discipline. The “Rules for School Children” and “training in Communist morality” permeate all the activities of the school, including such neutral subjects as mathematics and astronomy. It seems fair to assert, then, that even if the number of hours devoted to specific courses in Communist doctrine is not as large as that given to other subjects; certainly it is the most important part of the curriculum.

Next to political education, science and mathematics receive the greatest amount of consideration in the curriculum. The emphasis on sciences jibes with Lenin’s view that “science is the only path to truth”  Sciences spell power and control especially when applied via technology. Science raises the standard of living; it wins wars and conquers space. This power must be put to the use of the people’s revolution.

Mathematics, the tool of science and technology, is taken by all students for all ten-years school (Grades 1 to 10 inclusive). Geography (as a science) and biology are begun in the fourth year and continued throughout the remaining years. Physics is given in the sixth through the tenth years. Chemistry is taken for the last four years. Astronomy and psychology are given in the last year. Technical drawing, fundamentals of production, and applied science (technology) are handled in formal classes for three or four years and the students are expected to apply their learning in out of class activities under the supervision of experienced personnel.

The ten-year school devotes a relatively small amount of time to the humanities. Of course, language and literature are taken by all students every year of the ten-year school. They take six years of a foreign language and six years of singing and drawing.

When a student has completed the ten-year school (elementary and secondary) he is eligible for admission to the university or professional schools. However, the number attending the institutions of higher learning is quite limited, and admission is based on achievement in the lower schools and upon highly competitive examinations The curriculum at the university and professional schools depends upon the student’s specialty. But each specialization has a required number and sequence of courses. Thus, if a student is specializing in physics at the university, that curriculum is completely prescribed- there are no electives. All professional and advanced curricula contain the three courses in political education mentioned above.

Concept of Discipline

Yesipov and Goncharov, two well known Communist educations theorists, maintain that discipline must be an “inner condition.” Even when fear and punishment are used these should not be considered the best means of achieving true discipline. Rather, the pupil must live the disciplined life in school so that he will live it in adult life.

In the Marxist system, discipline is conceived as a virtue essential to achieve the goals of Communism. The school must insist on discipline not only because it is necessary for successful study and learning but also because it is necessary for life.

The characteristics of true Communist discipline are : (1) It must be based on an understanding of the necessity for norms of conduct. (2) It must be self-discipline, not one of obedience for obedience’ sake. The person will have so disciplined his will that he will always be ready to perform his duty in the best possible manner without waiting for the command to do so. (3) In its most perfect form, discipline will reflect as state of unquestioned obedience to authority when the situation demands that orders be given. (4) Discipline must habituate the individual to the performance of group (collective) activities. (5) True discipline must be founded on mutual respect for all members of the collective. (6)  Finally, discipline is “resolute, that is, it surmount difficulties, prompts the completion of every task, subject conduct to high purposes and conquers motives of low degree.”

The discipline of pupils is nurtured by the general practice and the whole content of the work of the school : skillful teaching of school subjects, strict regime in for the entire school life, unwavering observation by each pupil of the Rules for School Children’s collective, and rational use of measures and rewards and punishments. The leading role in this work belongs to the teachers.

The “Rules For School Children” mentioned in the quotation form an integral part of all teaching-learning methods. The student should study well, be on time for classes, pay attention to the teacher’s lecture and fellow pupils recitations, and do his own homework well. When a pupil is reciting he should stand erectly and remain standing until the teacher gives him permission to be seated. If he wishes to answer a question he should raise his hand and wait for the teacher to call him. All students must rise when the teacher (or visitor) enters or leaves the room. The “Rules” also cover dress, health habits, use of language on playground, courtesy to visitors at school, and deportment to and from school. In short, they control the behavior of school children during all their waking hours.

Academic Freedom

From the discussions on aims, methods, and curriculum, it is quite evident that academic freedom, in the sense that it is understood in the Western democracies, is nonexistent in Marxist countries. In the lower and secondary schools the teacher has no freedom in regard to course content, the way the content is to be taught, or when it is to be taught. Textbooks and syllabi are uniform.

The teachers are not allowed to mention other “points of view” in their discussion of assigned topics: there is only one point of view on any issue – that handed down by party officials. It seems that the indoctrination given elementary and secondary teachers is so effective that there are few breaches of this rigid discipline by teachers of these levels. But one wonders how the Communist countries, especially the Soviet Union, can be so advanced in research in the sciences if no academic freedom is granted to university professors involved in such research. The answer to this question seems to be that adequate freedom is given in those areas which do not touch upon politics or ideology. Thus the physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and chemist are given financial support and freedom to pursue their researches, for there is little chance that their findings will suggest changes in Communist philosophy.

Of course, the economist, historian, political scientist, and even the biologist are not so fortunate

The social scientist enjoys no academic freedom. Perhaps there is another explanation for the relatively large amount of pure research going on behind the Iron Curtain. The college teacher and researcher is encouraged to search for knowledge, especially that kind which will assist the nation to reach its goals in agriculture, production, space, and military preparedness. The results of such experimentation are submitted to the party and either accepted or rejected for theoretical or practical reasons.

Women Education

“Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.”― Karl Marx

Another aspect of the equalization of educational opportunity consisted in offering to women the same chances for lower and higher education offered to men. In general, the Communists seem to have been consistent in this policy, and within two decades after the revolution the percentage of men and women in universities and professional schools was almost the same. In some schools, the directors were quite scrupulous about the application of this principle and admitted the same number of women as men even to all those programs, such as medicine and engineering, which formerly had been open to men only. At mid-century the percentage of women in higher education is equal to that of men except in elementary education and medical-nursing services where women outnumber men. Programs of military careers, of course, are for men only. During World War II women received military training but primarily as an emergency measure.

Free, compulsory education for both sexes has its roots in Marxist egalitarianism. It is, however, fostered for very pragmatic reasons as well. It was mentioned in another context that Marxism, has recognized that education is the most powerful weapon at the disposal of the state for the reconstruction of society according to socialist principles. It would be most unwise on the part of the leaders of the revolution to exclude women from the program of indoctrination which the schools were expected to carry out. If women were not encouraged to participate in the socialist revolution they might well become a force for reactions. Therefore women as well as men must be involved in changing “the school from a weapon of bourgeois class rule into a weapon for complete destruction of this class divided society and into a weapon for communist transformation of society.”

In conclusion, the Communist had no choice but to liquidate illiteracy. One who could not read or understand the language was beyond the reach of Communist propaganda. It was an easy matter to see to it that only the right things were read and heard since the party controlled all media to communication. The revolutionaries had everything to gain by raising the educational level of all the people (young and old), and raise it they did. At the time of the revolution nearly three fourths of the population of Russia was illiterate. Forty years later, Russia had once of the best literacy records in the world. The history of education has recorded no feat as astonishing as this.

Educational Agencies

“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions.”
― Karl Marx

In Communist countries the state is regarded as the sole educational agency. The leaders of the revolution recognized that education was the most powerful weapon at their disposal in their efforts to effect the radical change in society. In fact, they viewed education as the only means of transforming an individualistic capitalistic society to a socialistic, classless one. The ultimate aim of education was bluntly stated as “strengthening the state and the building of a classless society.” All other goals are subsidiary to this final one.

In order to destroy the influence of the family in the education of children, state-sponsored nursery schools were established as rapidly as possible. When a child was three years old he was placed in these nursery schools so that he could be given the “proper start” in his educational career and so that his mother could participate in productive labor and the political life of the nation. These nursery schools assumed the responsibility of the family in providing food, shelter, exercise, and the general physical development of the child. Character development, training of the will, and early intellectual development were given high priority in these preschool years. Habits of cleanliness, respect for his own belongings and for public property are coupled with training in cooperative activities with his fellow pupils. The whole program is designed to make the child a more effective member of the collective.

Although it is not possible for all children to be placed in nursery schools and kindergartens, great efforts are expended to enroll as many as possible. Special attention is given to those children who might be turned against the Soviet state by parents who do not sympathize with the revolution. And once the child enrolls in the first grade his working hours are largely under the control of the school and communist youth groups. Thus it appears that the communists have been most successful in eliminating the family as an educational force in the life of the Soviet children.

Little proof is needed to show that the Church’s influence in education has been negated completely. The Marxist dictum that “religion is the opiate of the people” is the key to the Communist attitude toward any Church involvement in education.

With the family and the Church “out of the show” the state has a free hand in designing an educational program to serve its needs. The centralization of educational power in the state is absolute. “School are opened, approved and run by the state. The state determines the curriculum and methods of instruction to insure that education are in line with Party and State Policy and that it can be planned and directed for the Nation as a whole.” All adult education is state owned and controlled. Even the few seminaries conducted by the Orthodox Church must follow state curricula and methods.

Some countries have centralized control of education. But this control is in the hands of educators. In the Communist countries, the party leaders decree what the schools shall teach it, and how it shall be taught. Centers for educational research exist, but their findings can be applied in the schools only when they are approved by party authorities. The only criterion applied to such research regarding its acceptability is whether or not it serves the needs of the state and is in harmony with Marxist ideology.

In this modern technological age, mass-communication media (radio, television, newspapers, periodicals) can be considered important educational agencies. In the Western democracies a significant amount of political, aesthetic, and intellectual education is carried on by these means. Even when the state owns or controls these media different points of view are presented. But in Communist countries all broadcasts and publications have one basic purpose, the service of the state. The Gordian knot has been tied again by the all-powerful dictatorship of the proletariat: there is only one educational agency, the state.

Evaluation of Marxistic Education

It seems quite clear from the above that teachers enjoy very little academic freedom in Communist countries. If teachers have no freedom, it would be foolhardy to deny that indoctrination of pupils in Communist principles is standard procedure in schools.

• As noted above, a relatively large portion of the curriculum from kindergarten through the university is devoted to indoctrination in Marxist-Leninist principles. The lecture-recitation method, which is use in all academic classes, lends itself most effectively to indoctrination techniques. School discipline is another effective, though indirect, method of indoctrination. All the informal means of education —- youth organizations, radio, TV, and printed matter – are under the absolute control of the party and are used for indoctrination purposes. Thus it is correct to say that indoctrination in Marxism is carried on from the cradle to the grave.

• The communist educators recognize the need to develop habits of creative thinking in those areas of nonpolitical nature. They need young people who can devise new ways of improving agricultural and industrial production. Genius in physics, chemistry, mathematics, space research, and military science is not developed by lockstep educational programs and lifeless indoctrination. But up to this time, opportunities for pupils ‘ voluntary expression and creative thinking are very limited,
• However, from the point of view of many philosophers, this contemporary system has many deficiencies. The most significant of these is perhaps that Marxism, though it presents itself as a philosophy of life, is basically a social and economic philosophy. Thus its theory of knowledge and metaphysics are not developed to the point where they constitute a consistent system.

• Marxism claims to be empiricist yet the application of the dialectic to economic and social change is clearly rationalistic. Also, in metaphysics, it advocates a crassly materialistic notion of the universe which is itself not even in harmony with tenets of modern physics. Thus, many philosophers view Marxism not only as inconsistent but also as thoroughly outdated despite its claim to modernity.

• The rejection of human freedom leaves little opportunity for the development leadership qualities in the student. The individual is expected to use his talents for the good of the “cause” yet he is not permitted to develop his potentialities as he sees fit. In a similar vein Communist ethics is “situational” insofar as social norms are concerned. Yet no individual is allowed to apply the situational view of ethics to his own behavior. He must follow group norms.

• To make the state the end of education, to put all education in the hands of the political leadership, to prohibit any other agency from participating in the educational enterprise is to destroy education’s very foundations.

• The overemphasis on science and mathematics resulting in a neglect of the humanistic disciplines devitalizes the curriculum. Man cannot be prepared for  full living by science and mathematics alone.

• The lecture-recitation-test method of teaching does not allow for independent or creative thinking on the part of pupils. It emphasizes memory rather than understanding; it encourages passivity rather than engages the knowing powers of the student by activity.

• The absence of academic freedom among Communist teachers, especially at the higher educational levels, weakens the very foundations of true scholarship. Unless teachers are free to seek the truth and publicize the result of their research, an educational system will eventually destroy itself.

• The complete indoctrination of youth found in Communist countries can only create “a land of the blind.” It may serve the immediate purposes of the party, but in the long run a nation will become educationally stunted by such spoon-feeding.

But not all is evil in Communist education. Any educational system which can advance from one of the lowest to one of the highest literacy levels in a few short decades must have something to offer. Perhaps other systems might learn a few lessons.

• Communist countries have taken the whole business of education most seriously. They spend proportionately more of their national income on education than the Western democracies.

• This seriousness of purpose is reflected in the attitude of youth toward education. In general, Communist youth take their studies very seriously and consider it a privilege and a duty to attend school and do their very best to promote the “common good.” There is no time wasted. Students finish elementary and secondary school in less time than the American student.

• By expanding educational opportunity to all people, including adults, Communist educators have made full use of the abilities of the citizens. No talent “goes to waste” because the individual cannot afford to attend school.

• Although there appears to be too great an emphasis on science, as mentioned above, one feels that a Communist youth leaves secondary school with a thorough knowledge of the basic sciences. In a “scientific age,” this seems to be a very realistic goal and one which can be achieved in democratic lands.

• In Communist countries all educational activities are directed to an ultimate purpose. One may not agree with the ultimate goal of Communism, but one must admit that the possession of such a purpose gives direction to all activities.

• Although there are certain disadvantages in having nationwide standards, curricula, textbooks, educational time schedules, and the like, some things are to be gained from such uniformity. For example, studies of teacher effectiveness, comparison of achievement between schools or districts, pressure to cover certain content areas are all possible when all schools are doing the same thing, in the same way, at the same time for the same purpose.

Referances-

1-      Fromm, Erich, Marx’s Concept of Man (New York; Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1961).

2-      Hunt, R.N. Carew, Marxism Past and present (New York: Macmillan Co., 1955.

3-      Kalashnikov, G., people’s Education (Moscow, 1946).

4-      Lenin, V., “Materialism and Empiric Criticisms,” Selected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1943).

5-      Marx, Karl, and Engels, F., Manifesto of the Communist Party (New York: International Publishers, 1948).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

 

 

Case study is a valuable method of research, with distinctive characteristics that make it ideal for many types of investigations. It can also be used in combination with other methods. Its use and reliability should make it a more widely used methodology, once its features are better understood by potential researchers

Case study research excels at bringing us to an understanding of a complex issue or object and can extend experience or add strength to what is already known through previous research. Case studies emphasize detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events or conditions and their relationships. Researchers have used the case study research method for many years across a variety of disciplines. Social scientists, in particular, have made wide use of this qualitative research method to examine contemporary real-life situations .

Case study research, through reports of past studies, allows the exploration and understanding of complex issues. It can be considered a robust research method particularly when a holistic ,in-depth investigation is required. Recognized as a tool in many social science studies, the role of case study method in research becomes more prominent when issues with regard to education, sociology and community based problems, were raised. One of the reasons for the recognition of case study as a research method is that researchers were becoming more concerned about the limitations of quantitative methods in providing holistic and in-depth explanations of the social and behavioral problems in question. Through case study methods, a researcher is able to go beyond the quantitative statistical results and understand the behavioral conditions through the actor’s perspective

A case study is a research method  based on an in-depth investigation of a single individual, group, or event. By including both quantitative and qualitative data, case study helps explain both the process and outcome of a phenomenon through complete observation, reconstruction and analysis of the cases under investigation .

CONCEPT  OF CASE STUDY

Case study can be defined in a variety of ways. as case study is a specific instance that is frequently designed to illustrate a more general principle.

Researcher Robert K. Yin defines the case study research method as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used

Case studies are particularistic, descriptive, and heuristic and rely heavily on inductive reasoning in handling multiple data sources ‘as ‘it tries to illustrate a decision or set of decisions: why they were taken, how they were implemented, and with what result’. It can be defined as an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single entity, phenomenon, or social unit, as it is based on

In-depth, detailed data from wide data source.

Case studies observe effects in real contexts, recognizing that context is a powerful determinant of both cause and effects.

THE PURPOSE OF CASE STUDY

Case study can be a useful research method that can enable readers to understand how ideas and abstract principles can fit together.

Wallace  suggest that case study research is aimed at:

• Solving particular problems
• Applying theories into practice
• Generating hypotheses
• Providing illustrations

The case study is concerned with the antecedents of such complex phenomena as delinquency or reading disability. This is most frequently used in a clinical rather than a research setting; it become research only to the extent that it permits the deviation of generalizations of relatively broad applicability. In general case studies serve the greatest research functions through the suggestion of hypotheses that can be investigated more adequately by more rigorous techniques.

The purpose of case study is not to represent the world, but to represent the case. Case study has been one of important research methodologies in the category of empirical inquiry.    Research is ‘empirical’ when it employs observation, description, and case study as research techniques. On the other hand, Researchers from different disciplines view the term “case”, more or less, in different meanings. Case study is intended to portray, analyze and interpret the uniqueness of real individuals and situations through accessible accounts and to present and represent reality.

In education practitioners study schools or groups of schools ; curricula; the effect of innovations; the implementation of materials; classrooms; teachers; students. And in

Language learning, researchers often study mother tongue acquisition and  developments by looking at individual learners, and at what they have in common.

Case studies can be either single or multiple-case designs.

Single cases are used to confirm or challenge a theory, or to represent a unique or extreme case. Single-case studies are also ideal for revelatory cases where an observer may have access to a phenomenon that was previously inaccessible. Single-case designs require careful investigation to avoid misrepresentation and to maximize the investigator’s access to the evidence. These studies can be holistic or embedded the latter occurring when the same case study involves more than one unit of analysis.

Multiple-case studies follow replication logic. This is not to be confused with sampling logic where a selection is made out of a population, for inclusion in the study. This type of sample selection is improper in a case study. Each individual case study consists of a “whole” study, in which facts are gathered from various sources and conclusions drawn on those facts

CHATECTORISTICS OF THE CASE STUDY

2.A descriptive study

a. (I.e. the data collected constitute descriptions of psychological processes and events, and of the contexts in which they occurred (qualitative data).

b. The main emphasis is always on the construction of verbal descriptions of behavior or experience but quantitative data may be collected.

c. High levels of detail are provided.

2. Narrowly focused.

a. Typically a case study offers a description of only a single individual, and sometimes about groups.

b. Often the case study focuses on a limited aspect of a person, such as their psychopathological symptoms.

3. Combines objective and subjective data

a. i.e. the researcher may combine objective and subjective data: All are regarded as valid data for analysis, and as a basis for inferences within the case study.

i. The objective description of behavior and its context

ii. Details of the subjective aspect, such as feelings, beliefs, impressions or interpretations. In fact, a case study is uniquely able to offer a means of achieving an in-depth understanding of the behavior and experience of a single individual.

4. Process-oriented.

a. The case study method enables the researcher to explore and describe the nature of processes, which occur over time.

b. In contrast to the experimental method, which basically provides a stilled‘snapshot’ of processes, which may be continuing over time like forexample the development of language in children over time

FEATURES OF CASE STUDY

Sturman put it that a distinguishing feature of case studies is that human systems have a wholeness or integrity to them rather than being a loose connection of traits, necessitating in-depth investigation. On these considerations  the case study approach has several features as follows:

• It is concerned with a rich and vivid description of events relevant to the case.
• It provides a chronological narrative of events relevant to the case.
• It blends a description of events with the analysis of them.
• It focuses on individual actors or groups of actors, and seeks to understand their perceptions of events.
• It highlights specific events that are relevant to the case.
• The researcher is integrally involved in the case.
• An attempt is made to portray the richness of the case in writing up the report

There are some other features also in the case study ;

• Case studies are set in temporal, geographical, organizational, institutional and other contexts that enable boundaries to be drawn around the case.
• Case studies  can be defined by individuals and groups involved
• Case studies  can be defined by participants’ roles and functions in the case

CLASSIFICATION OF CASE-STUDIES

Case study can be classified in different ways, and the type preferred will depend on the objective of the research and probably on the paradigm underpinning it.

A number of taxonomies were put forward by many researchers from different aspects.

Yin  identifies three types of case studies as follows:

• Exploratory (as a pilot to other studies or research questions) set to explore any phenomenon in the data which serves as a point of interest to the researcher. In this case study also, prior fieldwork and small-scale data collection may be conducted before the research questions and hypotheses are proposed. As a prelude, this initial work helps prepare a framework of the study. A pilot study is considered an example of an exploratory case study  and is crucial in determining the protocol that will be used.
• Descriptive (providing narrative accounts) set to describe the natural phenomena which occur within the data in question, for instance, what different strategies are used by a reader and how the reader use them. The goal set by the researcher is to describe the data as they occur. The descriptive case studies may be in a narrative form The challenge of a descriptive case study is that the researcher mustbegin with a descriptive theory to support the description of the phenomenon or story. If this fails there is the possibility that the description lacks rigour and that problems may occur during the project.
• Explanatory (testing theories) examine the data closely both at a surface and deep level in order to explain the phenomena in the data.. On the basis of the data, the researcher may then form a theory and set to test this theory. Furthermore, explanatory cases are also deployed for causal studies where pattern- matching can be used to investigate certain phenomena in very complex and multivariate cases.

Merriam also put forward a three-way schema:

• Descriptive (narrative accounts)
• Interpretative (developing conceptual categories inductively in order to examine initial assumption) the researcher aims to interpret the data by developing conceptual categories, supporting or challenging the assumptions made regarding them.
• Evaluative (explaining and judging) the researcher goes further by adding their judgment to the phenomena found in the data

Stake looks at the classification from the point of view of the purpose informing the initial choice, and distinguishes between:

• The intrinsic case study, where the interest is in the case for its own sake, based on uniqueness. a researcher examines the case for its own sake. For instance, why does student A, age eight, fail to read when most children at that age can already read?
• The instrumental case study, selected to help in the understanding of something else, based on issues. the researcher selects a small group of subjects inorder to examine a certain pattern of behavior, for instance, to see how tertiary level students study for examination.
• The collective case study, groups of individual studies that are undertaken to gain a fuller picture, more than one case studied. the researcher coordinates data from several different sources, such as schools or individuals.

Stenhouse develops a typology of case studies.

• Neo-ethnographic’ an in-depth investigation of a single case by a participant observer
• Evaluative’. ‘a single case or group of cases studied at such depth as the evaluation of policy or practice will allow (usually condensed field work)’.
• Multi-site case study, which consists of ‘condensed field work undertaken by a team of workers on a number of sites and possibly offering an alternative approach to research to that based on sampling and statistical inference’
• Teacher research.  This should be one of accessible approaches in that this type is ‘classroom action research or school case studies undertaken by teachers who use their participant status as a basis on which to build skills of observation and analysis’

PROCESS OF CASE STUDY

A case study, when it is planned or designed, usually may follow the typical frame work of a research arranged by Morrison :

• Orienting decisions
• Research design and methodology
• Data analysis
• Presenting and reporting the results

But in planning a case study, Adelman  suggest the following issues should be taken into careful consideration in conducting case studies:

• The use of primary and secondary sources;
• The opportunities to check data;
• Triangulation ( including peer examination of the findings, respondent validation and reflexivity);
• Data collection methods (to be discussed in the following section)
• Data analysis and interpretation, and where appropriate, theory generation;
• The writing of the report.

Nisbet and Watt suggest three main stages in undertaking a case study.

• An open phase, without selectivity or prejudgment.\
• Progressive focusing enables a narrower field of focus to be established, identifying key foci for subsequent study and data collection.
• A draft interpretation is prepared which needs to be checked with respondents before appearing in the final form.

Asserting the reliability of the case study

Yin presented the protocol as a major component in asserting the reliability of the case study research. A typical protocol should have the following sections:

• An overview of the case study project (objectives, issues, topics being investigated)
• Field procedures (credentials and access to sites, sources of information)
• Case study questions (specific questions that the investigator must keep in mind during data collection)
• A guide for case study report (outline, format for the narrative)

The overview should communicate to the reader the general topic of inquiry and the purpose of the case study. The field procedures mostly involve data collection issues and must be properly designed. The investigator does not control the data collection environment as in other research strategies; hence the procedures become all the more important. During interviews, which by nature are open ended, the subject’s schedule must dictate the activity. Gaining access to the subject organization, having sufficient resources while in the field, clearly scheduling data collection activities, and providing for unanticipated events, must all be planned.

 

ORGANIZING AND CONDUCTING RESEARCH

Many well-known case study researchers such as Robert E. Stake, Helen Simons, and Robert K. Yin have suggested techniques for organizing and conducting the research successfully. Thus introduction to case study research proposes six steps be used:

Step 1. Determine and Define the Research Questions

The first step in case study research is to establish a firm research focus to which the researcher can refer over the course of study of a complex phenomenon or object. The researcher establishes the focus of the study by forming questions about the situation or problem to be studied and determining a purpose for the study. The research object in a case study is often a program, an entity, a person, or a group of people. Each object is likely to be intricately connected to political, social, historical, and personal issues, providing wide ranging possibilities for questions and adding complexity to the case study. The researcher investigates the object of the case study in depth using a variety of data gathering methods to produce evidence that leads to understanding of the case and answers the research questions.

The study’s questions are most likely to be “how” and “why” questions, and their definition is the first task of the researcher. To assist in targeting and formulating the questions, researchers conduct a literature review. This review establishes what research has been previously conducted and leads to refined, insightful questions about the problem. Careful definition of the questions at the start pinpoints where to look for evidence and helps determine the methods of analysis to be used in the study. The literature review, definition of the purpose of the case study, and early determination of the potential audience for the final report  will guide how the study will be designed, conducted, and publicly reported.

Case study questions are posed to the investigator, and must serve to remind that person of the data to be collected and its possible sources

Step 2. Select the Cases and Determine Data Gathering and Analysis Techniques

During the design phase of case study research, the researcher determines what approaches to use in selecting single or multiple real-life cases to examine in depth and which instruments and data gathering approaches to use. When using multiple cases, each case is treated as a single case. Each cases conclusions  can then be used as information contributing to the whole study, but each case remains a single case. Exemplary case studies carefully select cases and carefully examine the choices available from among many research tools available in order to increase the validity of the study. Careful discrimination at the point of selection also helps erect boundaries around the case.

The researcher must determine whether to study cases which are unique in some way or cases which are considered typical and may also select cases to represent a variety of geographic regions, a variety of size parameters, or other parameters. A useful step in the selection process is to repeatedly refer back to the purpose of the study in order to focus attention on where to look for cases and evidence that will satisfy the purpose of the study and answer the research questions posed. Selecting multiple or single cases is a key element, but a case study can include more than one unit of embedded analysis.

A key strength of the case study method involves using multiple sources and techniques in the data gathering process. The researcher determines in advance what evidence to gather and what analysis techniques to use with the data to answer the research questions. Data gathered is normally largely qualitative, but it may also be quantitative. Tools to collect data can include surveys, interviews, documentation review, observation, and even the collection of physical artifacts

McDonough introduce the questionnaires and structured interview schedules in case studies since these techniques allow for numerical analysis of elicited data. They also suggest that coded observation and factual logs will make use of pre-specified categories of information, which would contribute greatly to the examination of large-scale trends.

He list some other possible techniques catering for different aims and approaches to data collection as follows:

• Naturalistic and descriptive observation
• Narrative diaries
• Unstructured and ethnographic interviews
• Verbal reports
• Collection of existing information

In the case of case analysis, the wide range of ways includes correlation, tabulation, tallying, coding, thematic frequency and saliency, quantitative content analysis, and so on

Stake , and Yin identified six sources of evidence in case studies.

Documents could be letters, memoranda, agendas, administrative documents, newspaper articles, or any document that is germane to the investigation. Documents are also useful for making inferences about events. Documents can lead to false leads, in the hands of inexperienced researchers, which has been a criticism of case study research. Documents are communications between parties in the study, the researcher being a vicarious observer; keeping this in mind will help the investigator avoid being misled by such documents.

Archival documents can be service records, organizational records, lists of names, survey data, and other such records. The investigator has to be careful in evaluating the accuracy of the records before using them

Interviews are one of the most important sources of case study information. There are several forms of interviews that are possible: Open-ended, Focused, and Structured or survey. In an open-ended interview, respondents are asked to comment about certain events. They may propose solutions or provide insight into events. They may also corroborate evidence obtained from other sources. The researcher must avoid becoming dependent on a single informant, and seek the same data from other sources to verify its authenticity.

The focused interview is used in a situation where the respondent is interviewed for a short period of time, usually answering set questions. This technique is often used to confirm data collected from another source.

The structured interview is similar to a survey. The questions are detailed and developed in advance, much as they are in a survey

Direct observation occurs when a field visit is conducted during the case study. It could be as simple as casual data collection activities. This technique is useful for providing additional information about the topic being studied. Participant-observation makes the researcher into an active participant in the events being studied. This often occurs in studies of groups. The technique provides some unusual opportunities for collecting data.

Physical artifacts can be physical evidence that may be collected during the he perspective of the researcher can be broadened as a result of the discovery.

It is important to keep in mind that not all sources are relevant for all case studies .The investigator should be capable of dealing with all of them, should it be necessary, but each case will present different opportunities for data collection.

There are some conditions that arise when a case researcher must start data collection before the study questions have been defined Another important point to review is the benefit of using rival hypotheses and theories as a means of adding quality control to the case study. This improves the perception of the fairness and serious thinking of the researcher.

Throughout the design phase, researchers must ensure that the study is well constructed to ensure construct validity, internal validity, external validity, and reliability. Construct validity requires the researcher to use the correct measures for the concepts being studied. Internal validity that certain conditions lead to other conditions and requires the use of multiple pieces of evidence from multiple sources to uncover convergent lines of inquiry. The researcher strives to establish a chain of evidence forward and backward. External validity reflects whether or not findings are able to  generalize  beyond the immediate case or cases; the more variations in places, people, and procedures a case study can withstand and still yield the same findings, the more external validity. Techniques such as cross-case examination and within-case examination along with literature review helps ensure external validity.

Reliability refers to the stability, accuracy, and precision of measurement. Exemplary case study design ensures that the procedures used are well documented and can be repeated with the same results over and over again.

Step 3. Prepare to Collect the Data

Because case study research generates a large amount of data from multiple sources, systematic organization of the data is important to prevent the researcher from becoming overwhelmed by the amount of data and to prevent the researcher from losing sight of the original research purpose and questions. Advance preparation assists in handling large amounts of data in a documented and systematic fashion. Researchers prepare databases to assist with categorizing, sorting, storing, and retrieving data for analysis.

Good case studies prepare good training programs for investigators, establish clear protocols and procedures in advance of investigator field work, and conduct a pilot study in advance of moving into the field in order to remove obvious barriers and problems.

The investigator training program covers the basic concepts of the study, terminology, processes, and methods, and teaches investigators how to properly apply the techniques being used in the study. The program also trains investigators to understand how the gathering of data using multiple techniques strengthens the study by providing opportunities for triangulation during the analysis phase of the study. The program covers protocols for case study research, including time deadlines, formats for narrative reporting and field notes, guidelines for collection of documents, and guidelines for field procedures to be used.

Investigators need to be good listeners who can hear exactly the words being used by those interviewed. Qualifications for investigators also include being able to ask good questions and interpret answers. Good investigators review documents looking for facts, but also read between the lines and pursue collaborative evidence elsewhere when that seems appropriate.

Investigators need to be flexible in real-life situations and not feel threatened by unexpected change, missed appointments, or lack of office space. Investigators need to understand the purpose of the study and grasp the issues and must be open to contrary findings. Investigators must also be aware that they are going into the world of real human beings who may be threatened or unsure of what the case study will bring.

After investigators are trained, the final advance preparation step is to select a pilot site and conduct a pilot test using each data gathering method so that problematic areas can be uncovered and corrected. Researchers need to anticipate key problems and events, identify key people, prepare letters of introduction, establish rules for confidentiality, and actively seek opportunities to revisit and revise the research design in order to address and add to the original set of research questions.

Step 4. Collect Data in the Field

The researcher must collect and store multiple sources of evidence comprehensively and systematically, in formats that can be referenced and sorted so that converging lines of inquiry and patterns can be uncovered. Researchers carefully observe the object of the case study and identify causal factors associated with the observed phenomenon. Renegotiation of arrangements with the objects of the study or addition of questions to interviews may be necessary as the study progresses. Case study research is flexible, but when changes are made, they are documented systematically.

Good case studies use field notes and databases to categorize and reference data so that it is readily available for subsequent reinterpretation. Field notes record feelings and intuitive hunches, pose questions, and document the work in progress. They record testimonies, stories, and illustrations which can be used in later reports. They may warn of impending bias because of the detailed exposure of the client to special attention, or give an early signal that a pattern is emerging. They assist in determining whether or not the inquiry needs to be reformulated or redefined based on what is being observed. Field notes should be kept separate from the data being collected and stored for analysis.

Maintaining the relationship between the issue and the evidence is mandatory. The researcher may enter some data into a database and physically store other data, but the researcher documents, classifies, and cross-references all evidence so that it can be efficiently recalled for sorting and examination over the course of the study.

Step 5. Evaluate and Analyze the Evidence

This aspect of the case study methodology is the least developed .As a result, some researchers have suggested that if the study were made conducive to statistical analysis, the process would be easier and more acceptable. This quantitative approach would be appealing to some of the critics of the case study methodology. Miles and Huberman suggested analytic techniques such as rearranging the arrays, placing the evidence in a matrix of categories, creating flowcharts or data displays, tabulating the frequency of different events, using means, variances and cross tabulations to examine the relationships between variables, and other such techniques to facilitate analysis.

There must first be an analytic strategy, that will lead to conclusions. Yin presented two strategies for general use: One is to rely on theoretical propositions of the study, and then to analyze the evidence based on those propositions. The other technique is to develop a case description, which would be a framework for organizing the case study. In other situations, the original objective of the case study may help to identify some causal links that could be analyzed.

Cambell described “pattern-matching” as a useful technique for linking data to the propositions. He  asserted that pattern-matching is a situation where several pieces of information from the same case may be related to some theoretical proposition.

Construct validity is especially problematic in case study research. because of potential investigator subjectivity.

Yin proposed three remedies to counteract this: using multiple sources of evidence, establishing a chain of evidence, and having a draft case study report reviewed by key informants. Internal validity is a concern only in causal (explanatory) cases. This is usually a problem of “inferences” in case studies, and can be dealt with using pattern-matching, which has been described above. External validity deals with knowing whether the results are able  to generalize beyond the immediate case. Reliability is achieved in many ways in a case study

Pattern-matching is another major mode of analysis. This type of logic compares an empirical pattern with a predicted one. Internal validity is enhanced when the patterns coincide. If the case study is an explanatory one, the patterns may be related to the dependent or independent variables. If it is a descriptive study, the predicted pattern must be defined prior to data collection

This researcher examines the proposed methodology for the development of survey instruments. This aspect is an important element of the data gathering function in the study.The researcher examines raw data using many interpretations in order to find linkages between the research object and the outcomes with reference to the original research questions. Throughout the evaluation and analysis process, the researcher remains open to new opportunities and insights. The case study method, with its use of multiple data collection methods and analysis techniques, provides researchers with opportunities to triangulate data in order to strengthen the research findings and conclusions.

The tactics used in analysis force researchers to move beyond initial impressions to improve the likelihood of accurate and reliable findings. Good case studies will deliberately sort the data in many different ways to expose or create new insights and will deliberately look for conflicting data to disconfirm the analysis. Researchers categorize, tabulate, and recombine data to address the initial propositions or purpose of the study, and conduct cross-checks of facts and discrepancies in accounts. Focused, short, repeat interviews may be necessary to gather additional data to verify key observations or check a fact.

Specific techniques include placing information into arrays, creating matrices of categories, creating flow charts or other displays, and tabulating frequency of events. Researchers use the quantitative data that has been collected to corroborate and support the qualitative data which is most useful for understanding the rationale or theory underlying relationships. Another technique is to use multiple investigators to gain the advantage provided when a variety of perspectives and insights examine the data and the patterns. When the multiple observations converge, confidence in the findings increases. Conflicting perceptions, on the other hand, cause the researchers to pry more deeply.

Another technique, the cross-case search for patterns, keeps investigators from reaching premature conclusions by requiring that investigators look at the data in many different ways. Cross-case analysis divides the data by type across all cases investigated. One researcher then examines the data of that type thoroughly. When a pattern from one data type is corroborated by the evidence from another, the finding is stronger. When evidence conflicts, deeper probing of the differences is necessary to identify the cause or source of conflict. In all cases, the researcher treats the evidence fairly to produce analytic conclusions answering the original “how” and “why” research questions.

Step 6. Prepare the report

The guide for the case study report is often neglected, but case studies do not have the uniform outline, as do other research reports. It is essential to plan this report as the case develops, to avoid problems at the end.

Exemplary case studies report the data in a way that transforms a complex issue into one that can be understood, allowing the reader to question and examine the study and reach an understanding independent of the researcher. The goal of the written report is to portray a complex problem in a way that conveys a vicarious experience to the reader. Case studies present data in very publicly accessible ways and may lead the reader to apply the experience in his or her own real-life situation. Researchers pay particular attention to displaying sufficient evidence to gain the readers confidence that all avenues have been explored, clearly communicating the boundaries of the case, and giving special attention to conflicting propositions

Techniques for composing the report can include handling each case as a separate chapter or treating the case as a chronological recounting. Some researchers report the case study as a story. During the report preparation process, researchers critically examine the document looking for ways the report is incomplete. The researcher uses representative audience groups to review and comment on the draft document. Based on the comments, the researcher rewrites and makes revisions. Some case study researchers suggest that the document review audience include a journalist and some suggest that the documents should be reviewed by the participants in the study.

APPLYING THE CASE STUDY METHOD TO AN ELECTRONIC COMMUNITY NETWORK

By way of example, we apply these six steps to an example study of multiple participants in an electronic community network. All participants are non-profit organizations which have chosen an electronic community network on the World Wide Web as a method of delivering information to the public. The case study method is applicable to this set of users because it can be used to examine the issue of whether or not the electronic community network is beneficial in some way to the organization and what those benefits might be

Step 1. Determine and Define the Research QuestionsIn general, electronic community networks have three distinct types of users, each one a good candidate for case study research. The three groups of users include people around the world who use the electronic community network, the non-profit organizations using the electronic community network to provide information to potential users of their services, and the “community” that forms as the result of interacting with other participants on the electronic community network.

In this case, the researcher is primarily interested in determining whether or not the electronic community network is beneficial in some way to non-profit organization participants. The researcher begins with a review of the literature to determine what prior studies have determined about this issue and uses the literature to define the following questions for the study of the non-profit organizations providing information to the electronic community network:

Step 2. Select the Cases and Determine Data Gathering and Analysis Techniques

Many communities have constructed electronic community networks on the World Wide Web. At the outset of the design phase, the researcher determines that only one of these networks will be studied and further sets the study boundaries to include only some of the  organizations represented on that one network. The researcher contacts the Board of Directors of the community network, who are open to the idea of the case study. The researcher also gathers computer generated log data from the network and, using this data, determines that an in-depth study of representative organizations from four categories — health care, environmental, education, and religious — is feasible

The researcher considers multiple sources of data for this study and selects document examination, the gathering and study of organizational documents such as administrative reports, agendas, letters, minutes, and news clippings for each of the organizations. In this case, the investigator decides to also conduct open-ended interviews with key members of each organization using a check-list to guide interviewers during the interview process so that uniformity and consistency can be assured in the data, which could include facts, opinions, and unexpected insights. In this case study, the researcher cannot employ direct observation as a tool because some of the organizations involved have no office and meet infrequently to conduct business directly related to the electronic community network. The researcher instead decides to survey all Board members of the selected organizations using a questionnaire as a third data gathering tool. Within-case and cross-case analysis of data are selected as analysis techniques.

Step 3. Prepare to Collect the Data

The researcher prepares to collect data by first contacting each organization to be studied to gain their cooperation, explain the purpose of the study, and assemble key contact information. Since data to be collected and examined includes organizational documents, the researcher states his intent to request copies of these documents, and plans for storage, classification, and retrieval of these items, as well as the interview and survey data. The researcher develops a formal investigator training program to include seminar topics on non-profit organizations and their structures in each of the four categories selected for this study. The training program also includes practice sessions in conducting open-ended interviews and documenting sources, suggested field notes formats, and a detailed explanation of the purpose of the case study. The researcher selects a fifth case as a pilot case, and the investigators apply the data gathering tools to the pilot case to determine whether the planned timeline is feasible and whether or not the interview and survey questions are appropriate and effective. Based on the results of the pilot, the researcher makes adjustments and assigns investigators particular cases which become their area of expertise in the evaluation and analysis of the data

Step 4. Collect Data in the Field

Investigators first arrange to visit with the Board of Directors of each  organization as a group and ask for copies of the organization’s mission, news clippings, brochures, and any other written material describing the organization and its purpose. The investigator reviews the purpose of the study with the entire Board, schedules individual interview times with as many Board members as can cooperate, confirms key contact data, and requests that all Board members respond to the written survey which will be mailed later.

Investigators take written notes during the interview and record field notes after the interview is completed. The interviews, although open-ended, are structured around the research questions defined at the start of the case study.

The investigators field notes record impressions and questions that might assist with the interpretation of the interview data. The investigator makes note of stories told during open-ended interviews and flags them for potential use in the final report. Data is entered into the database.

The researcher mails written surveys to all Board members with a requested return date and a stamped return envelope. Once the surveys are returned, the researcher codes and enters the data into the database so that it can be used independently as well as integrated when the case study progresses to the point of cross-case examination of data for all four cases.

Step 5. Evaluate and Analyze the Data

Within-case analysis is the first analysis technique used with each non-profit organization under study. The assigned investigator studies each organizations written documentation and survey response data as a separate case to identify unique patterns within the data for that single organization. Individual investigators prepare detailed case study write-ups for each organization, categorizing interview questions and answers and examining the data for within-group similarities and differences.

Cross-case analysis follows. Investigators examine pairs of cases, categorizing the similarities and differences in each pair. Investigators then examine similar pairs for differences, and dissimilar pairs for similarities. As patterns begin to emerge, certain evidence may stand out as being in conflict with the patterns. In those cases, the investigator conducts follow-up focused interviews to confirm or correct the initial data in order to tie the evidence to the findings and to state relationships in answer to the research questions

Step 6 Prepare the Report

The outline of the report includes thanking all of the participants, stating the problem, listing the research questions, describing the methods used to conduct the research and any potential flaws in the method used, explaining the data gathering and analysis techniques used, and concluding with the answers to the questions and suggestions for further research. Key features of the report include a retelling of specific stories related to the successes or disappointments experienced by the organizations that were conveyed during data collection, and answers or comments illuminating issues directly related to the research questions. The researcher develops each issue using quotations or other details from the data collected, and points out the triangulation of data where applicable. The report also includes confirming and conflicting findings from literature reviews. The report conclusion makes assertions and suggestions for further research activity, so that another researcher may apply these techniques to another electronic community network and its participants to determine whether similar findings are identifiable in other communities. Final report distribution includes all participants

A report of case studies made for the purpose of studying the circumstances common to several instances of some particular educational condition, should present a schedule of the antecedents studied, the amount of each factor present in each particular situation ,a record of whether the antecedent was or was not judged to be the determining factor in each specific situation, the adjustments made, and the results secured.

ADVANTAGES OF CASE STUDY

The examination of the data is most often conducted within the context of its use that is, within the situation in which the activity takes place. A case study might be interested, for example, in the process by which a subject comprehends an authentic text. To explore the strategies the reader uses, the researcher must observe the subject within her environment, such as reading in classroom or reading for leisure. This would contrast with experiment, for instance, which deliberate isolates a phenomenon from its context, focusing on a limited number of variables.

Variations in terms of intrinsic, instrumental and collective approaches to case studies allow for both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data. Some longitudinal studies of individual subjects, for instance, rely on qualitative data from journal writings which give descriptive accounts of behavior. On the other hand, there are also a number of case studies which seek evidence from both numerical and categorical responses of individual subjects

Help to explain the complexities of real life situationsThe detailed qualitative accounts often produced in case studies not only help to explore or describe the data in real-life environment, but also help to explain the complexities of real life situations which may not be captured through experimental or survey research. A case  of reading strategies used by an individual subject, for instance, can give access to not only the numerical information concerning the strategies used, but also the reasons for strategy use, and how the strategies are used in relation to other strategies. As reading behaviors involve complex cognitive processes, each reading strategy cannot be examined in isolation but rather in relation to other strategies .

Stimulating new research. A case study can sometimes highlight extraordinary behavior, which can stimulate new research. For example, Luria’s study of the memory man  “S”  enabled  researchers to  begin to investigate  cases  of  unusual memory abilities, and the cognitive mechanisms, which made  such phenomena possible. Without the case  study, it is  unlikely that this area of  research would have been opened up in the same way.

Contradicting  established  theory.  Case  studies  may  sometimes  contradict established psychological theories. Searle cites the case study of severely deprived Czechoslovak twins, and the remarkable recovery they showed when placed in caring social environment, as an example of a case study which challenged the established theory of the early years of life being a critical period for human social development,

Giving new insight into phenomena or experience. Because case studies are so rich in information, they can give insight into phenomena, which we could not gain in any other way. For example, the case of S.B., a blind man given sight in adulthood, gave researchers a particularly detailed insight into the processes and experiences of perception, highlighting aspects of the experience, which had not yet previously been suspected.

Permitting investigation of otherwise inaccessible situations. Searle  claimed that the case study gives psychological researchers the possibility to investigate cases,  which  could  not  possibly  be  engineered  in  research  laboratories.  One example  of  this  is  the  case  of  Genie,  the  severely  deprived  child  whose  case enabled  researchers to  study the effect  of extreme  social  deprivation continued from infancy to puberty. To create such a situation for research purposes would be totally  unethical  and  not  possible  but  when  Genie  was  discovered  by  social workers, the use of case-study methodology permitted much deeper insights into the mechanisms, processes and consequences of her experience and recovery.

LIMITATIONS OF CASE STUDY

Despite these advantages, case studies have received criticisms

Are often accused of lack of rigor. Case study method has always been criticized for its lack of rigor and the tendency for a researcher to have a biased interpretation of the data. Too many times, the case study investigator has been sloppy, and has allowed equivocal evidence or biased views to influence the direction of the findings and conclusions.

Provide very little basis for scientific generalization since they use a small number of subjects, some conducted with only one subject. The question commonly raised is “How can you generalize from a single case?”

Often labeled as being too long, difficult to conduct and producing a massive amount of documentation . In particular, case studies of ethnographic or longitudinal nature can elicit a great deal of data over a period of time. The danger comes  the data are not managed and organized systematically.

Dependency on a single case exploration making it difficult to reach a generalizing conclusion . Grounds for establishing reliability and generality are also subjected to skepticism when a small sampling is deployed

Considered case methodology ‘microscopic’ because of the limited sampling cases. , however, parameter establishment and objective setting of the research are far more important in case study method than a big sample size

Replication not possible. Uniqueness of data means that they are valid for only one person. While this is strength in some forms of research, it is a weakness for others, because it means that findings cannot be replicated and so some types of reliability measures are very low.

The  researcher’s  own  subjective  feelings  may  influence  the  case  study

(researcher bias). Both in the collection of data and their interpretation. This

is  particularly true of many of the  famous case studies in psychology’s history,

Memory  distortions. The  heavy  reliance  on memory when  reconstructing the case history means that the information about past experiences and events may be notoriously subject to distortion. Very few people have full documentation of all various aspects of their lives, and there is always a tendency that people focus on factors which they find important themselves while they may be unaware of other possible influences.

Not possible to replicate findings. Serious problems in generalising the results of a unique individual to other people because the findings may not be representative of any particular population.

CONCLUSION

The situation with reference to use of case study materials might be greatly clarified , if the investigator understood that the case study method may serve two purpose ;(1)

To determine the antecedents of some particular instance of a phenomenon,(2)To discover the circumstances common to a number of instances of some condition.

The first type of case study deal with similar problems and, further the scientific study of education .In this respect reports of the case study indicate that it had served  the intended purpose. The report  contains evidence concerning the initial status of the phenomenon under investigation, a statement of the symptoms observed, conditions drawn ,evidence concerning the supposed antecedents of the unsatisfactory status of the condition under investigation, the remedial adjustments made, and the observed effects ,Although it is true that case studies of a particular phenomenon were designed first of all to improve some given condition, they may however, provide suggested procedure for those who deal with similar problems .

Case studies are considered useful in research as they enable researchers to examine data at the micro level. As an alternative to quantitative or qualitative research, case studies can be a practical solution when a big sample population is difficult to obtain. Although case studies have various advantages, in that they present data of real-life situations and they provide better insights into the detailed behaviors of the subjects of interest,

Critics of the case study method believe that the intense exposure to study of the case biases the findings. Some dismiss case study research as useful only as an exploratory tool A common misconception is that the various research strategies should be arrayed hierarchically. Thus, we were once taught to believe that case studies were appropriate for the exploratory phase of an investigation that surveys and histories were appropriate for the descriptive phase, and that experiments were the only way of doing exploratory or causal inquiries.

The hierarchical view, however, is incorrect. Finally, case studies are far from being only an exploratory strategy. Yet researchers continue to use the case study research method with success in carefully planned and crafted studies of real-life situations, issues, and problems

Often time, case study research is dismissed as useful only as an exploratory tool. Despite these criticisms, researchers continue to deploy the case study method particularly in studies of real-life situations governing social issues and problems. Case studies from various disciplines and domains are widely reported in the literature.

Case studies are complex because they generally involve multiple sources of data, may include multiple cases within a study, and produce large amounts of data for analysis. Researchers from many disciplines use the case study method to build upon theory, to produce new theory, to dispute or challenge theory, to explain a situation, to provide a basis to apply solutions to situations, to explore, or to describe an object or phenomenon. The advantages of the case study method are its applicability to real-life, contemporary, human situations and its public accessibility through written reports. Case study results relate directly to the common readers everyday experience and facilitate an understanding of complex real-life situations.

REFERENCES

Busha, C. H., & Harter, S. P. (1980). Research methods in librarianship, techniques and interpretation. New York: Academic Press

DuMont, R. R. (1975). The large urban public library as an agency of social reform, 1890-1915. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Goldhor, H. (1972). An introduction to scientific research in librarianship. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.

Hamel, J. (with Dufour, S., & Fortin, D.). (1993). Case study methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Hayes, N. (2000) Doing Psychological Research. Gathering and analysing data. Buckingham: Open

University Press. p. 133.6

McClure, C. R., & Hernon, P. (Eds.). (1991). Library and information science research: perspectives and strategies for improvement. Norwood, NJ: Ablex

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1984). Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook of new methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. .

Paris, M. (1988). Library school closings: Four case studies. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

Patton, M. Q. (1980). Qualitative evaluation methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage

Powell, R. R. (1985). Basic research methods for librarians. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Simons, H. (1980). Towards a science of the singular: Essays about case study in educational research and evaluation. Norwich, UK: University of East Anglia, Centre for Applied Research in Education.

Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Taylor, R. S. (1967). Question-negotiation and information-seeking in libraries. Bethlehem, PA: Center for the Information Sciences.

Weiss, C.H., & Bucuvala, M. J. (1980). Social science research and decision-making. New York: Columbia University Press.

Wholey, J. S., Hatry, H. P., & Newcomer, K. E. (Eds.). (1994). Handbook of practical program evaluation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Yin, R. K. (1984). Case study research: Design and methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Acknowledgement

Dr. Suraksha Bansal for being the scribe to this article.

 

 

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Believing we can improve schooling with more tests is like believing you can make yourself grow taller by measuring your height.” Robert Schaeffer

Achievement is the accomplishment or proficiency of performance in a given skill or body of knowledge. Therefore, it can be said that achievement implies the overall mastery of a pupil on a particular context. Any measuring instrument that measures the attainments or accomplishments of a pupil’s achievement must be valid and reliable.

Testing is a systematic procedure for comparing the behavior of two or more persons. This way an achievement test is an examination to reveal the relative standing of an individual in the group with respect to achievement.

As achievement is the competence of a person in relation to a domain of knowledge An Achievement Test is a test of knowledge or proficiency based on something learned or taught. The purpose of an achievement test is to determine student’s knowledge in a particular subject area.

Characteristics of Good Measurement Instruments:

Measurement tools can be judged on a variety of merits. These include practical issues as well as technical ones. All instruments have strengths and weaknesses no instrument is perfect for every task. Some of the practical issue that need to be considered includes:

Criteria of a good measuring instrument

 

Practical Criteria Technical Criteria

* Ease in administration                                                                                      * Reliability

* Cost                                                                                                                 * Validity

* Time and effort required for respondent to complete measure

* Acceptability

 

Practical Criteria:

Ease in administration:

A test is good only when the conditions of answering are simple (scientific and logical). Its instruction should be simple and clear.

Cost:

A good test should be in expensive, not only from the view point of money but also from the view point of time and effort taken in the construction of a test. Fortunately there is no direct relationship between cost and quality.

Time and effort required for respondent to complete measure:

Generally the time given to students is always in short supply however the students too do not accept very long tests. Therefore a test should neither be very long nor very short.

Acceptability:

A good test should be acceptable to student to whom its being given without regard to any specific situation that is the question given in the test should be neither very difficult nor very easy.

 

Technical Criteria

Along with the practical issues, measurement tools  may be judged on the following:

Consistency (Reliability): -

Reliability of a test refers to its consistency or stability. A test good reliability means that the test taker will obtain the same test score over repeated testing as long as no other extraneous factors have affected the score. Reliability is the extent to which the measurements resulting from a test are the result of characteristics of those being measured. For example, reliability has elsewhere been defined as “the degree to which test scores for a group of test takers are consistent over repeated applications of a measurement procedure and hence are inferred to be dependable and repeatable for an individual test taker” (Berkowitz, Wolkowitz, Fitch, and Kopriva, 2000).

Technically, the theoretical definition of reliability is the proportion of score variance that is caused by systematic variation in the population of test-takers. This definition is population-specific. If there is greater systematic variation in one population than another, such as in all public school students compared with only eighth-graders, the test will have greater reliability for the more varied population. This is a consequence of how reliability is defined. Reliability is a joint characteristic of a test and examinee group, not just a characteristic of a test. Indeed, reliability of any one test varies from group to group

Reliability is the quality of a test which produces scores that are not affected much by chance. Students sometimes randomly miss a question they really knew the answer to or sometimes get an answer correct just by guessing; teachers can sometimes make an error or score inconsistently with subjectively scored tests.

Reliability of a  measuring instruments depends on two factors-

1. Adequacy in sampling

2. Objectivity in scoring

A good instrument will produce consistent scores. An instrument’s reliability is estimated using a correlation coefficient of one type or another. For purposes of learning research, the major characteristics of good scales include:

• Test-retest Reliability:

The test-retest reliability method is one of the simplest ways of testing the stability and reliability of an instrument over time. In  test-retest reliability the same test is  administer to the same sample on two different occasions. This approach assumes that there is no substantial change in the construct being measured between the two occasions.. The ability of an instrument to give accurate scores from one time to another. Also known as temporal consistency.

A test-retest reliability coefficient is obtained by administering the same test twice and correlating the scores. In concept, it is an excellent measure of score consistency because it allows the direct measurement of consistency from administration to administration. This coefficient is not recommended in practice, however, because of its problems and limitations. It requires two administrations of the same test with the same group of individuals. The amount of time allowed between measures is critical. The shorter the time gap, the higher the correlation; the longer the time gap, the lower the correlation If the time interval is short, people may be overly consistent because they remember some of the questions and their responses. If the interval is long, then the results are confounded with learning and maturation, that is, changes in the persons themselves

Alternate-form reliability

Most standardized tests provide equivalent forms that can be used interchangeably. For this purpose  first have two parallel forms are created . One way to accomplish this is to create a large set of questions that address the same construct and then randomly divide the questions into two sets. You administer both instruments to the same sample of people. The correlation between the two parallel forms is the estimate of reliability. These alternate forms are typically matched in terms of content and difficulty. The correlation of scores on pairs of alternate forms for the same examinees provides another measure of consistency or reliability. Even with the best test and item specifications, each test would contain slightly different content and, as with test-retest reliability, maturation and learning may confound the results..

• Split-half Reliability:

The consistency of items within a test. There are two types of item coherence: which assesses the consistency of items in one-half of a scale to the other half.  In split-half reliability. As the name suggests, split-half reliability is a coefficient obtained by dividing a test into halves we randomly divide all items that purport to measure the same construct into two sets. We administer the entire instrument to a sample of people and calculate the total score for each randomly divided half.  by correlating the scores on each half, and then correcting for length The split can be based on odd versus even numbered items, randomly selecting items, or manually balancing content and difficulty. This approach has an advantage in that it only requires a single test administration. Its weakness is that the resultant coefficient will vary as a function of how the test was split. It is also not appropriate on tests in which speed is a factor

• Internal consistency reliability:

It estimates the consistency among all items in the instrument. Internal consistency. Internal consistency focuses on the degree to which the individual items are correlated with each other and is thus often called homogeneity. Several statistics fall within this category. The best known are Cronbach’s alpha, the Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) and the Kuder-Richardson Formula 21 (KR-21). The Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) first published in 1937 is a measure of internal consistency reliability for measures with dichotomous choices. It is analogous to Cronbach’s α, except Cronbach’s α is also used for non-dichotomous (continuous) measures. A high KR-20 coefficient (e.g., >0.90) indicates a homogeneous test.

• Inter-rater reliability:

inter-rater reliability, inter-rater agreement, or concordance is the degree of agreement among raters. This type of reliability is assessed by having two or more independent judges score the test. The scores are then compared to determine the consistency of the raters estimates. One way to test inter-rater reliability is to have each rater assign each test item a score. For example, each rater might score items on a scale from 1 to 10. Next, you would calculate the correlation between the two rating to determine the level of inter-rater reliability. Another means of testing inter-rater reliability is to have raters determine which category each observations falls into and then calculate the percentage of agreement between the raters. So, if the raters agree 8 out of 10 times, the test has an 80% inter-rater reliability rate.

The degree to which different observers or raters give consistent scores using the same instrument, rating scale, or rubric. Also called Scoring agreement.

 

Suggestions for improving the reliability

 

The best suggestions for improving the reliability of classroom tests are:

• Start planning the test and writing the items well ahead of the time the test is to be given. A test written hurriedly at the last minute is not likely to be a reliable test

 

• · Write clear directions and use standard administrative procedures.
  • Pay more attention to the careful construction of the test questions. Phrase each question clearly so that students know exactly what you want. Try to write items that discriminate among good and poor students and are of an appropriate difficulty level.
  • Write longer tests. The number of items are needed in order to provide reliable measurement. depends on the quality of the items, the difficulty of the items, the range of the scores, and other factors. So include as many questions as you think the students can complete in the testing time available.

Meaningfulness (Validity):

Validity is the quality of a test which measures what it is supposed to measure. It is the degree to which evidence, common sense, or theory supports any interpretations or conclusions about a student based on his/her test performance. More simply, it is how one knows that a math test measures students’ math ability, not their reading ability.

Validity like reliability also depends upon certain factors, they are -

1. Adequacy in sampling

2. Objectivity in scoring

3. Aim

Thus, a valid measurement tool does a good job of measuring the concept that it purports to measure. It is important to remember that the validity of an instrument only applies to a specific purpose with a specific group of people.

A test is valid when it

• produces consistent scores over time.
• correlates well with a parallel form.
• measures what it purports to measure.
• can be objectively scored.
• has representative norms.

Forms of Validity

• Construct validity:

Construct validity  refers to the extent to which a test captures a specific theoretical construct or trait and it overlaps with. Construct validity establishes that the instrument is truly measuring the desired construct. This is the most important form of validity, because it really subsumes all of the other forms of validity.

To asses the test’s internal consistency. That is, if a test has construct validity, scores on the individual test items should correlate highly with the total test score. This is evidence that the test is measuring a single construct

also developmental changes. tests measuring certain constructs can be shown to have construct validity if the scores on the tests show predictable developmental changes over time.

and experimental intervention, that is if a test has construct validity, scores should change following an experimental manipulation, in the direction predicted by the theory underlying the construct.

• Convergent validity:

We can create 2 different methods to measure the same variable and when they correlate we have demonstrated convergent validity. A type of validity that is determined by hypothesizing and examining the overlap between two or more tests that presumably measure the same construct. In other words, convergent validity is used to evaluate the degree to which two or more measures that theoretically should be related to each other are, in fact, observed to be related to each other.

Comparison and correlation of scores on an instrument with other variables or scores that should theoretically be similar. A test has convergent validity if it has a high correlation with another test that measures the same construct

Divergent validity

a test’s divergent validity is demonstrated through a low correlation with a test that measures a different construct. When we create 2 different unrelated methods to measure the same variable and when they do not correlate. We have demonstrated divergent validity.

The goal of divergent validity is that to demonstrate we are measuring one specific construct and not combining two different constructs.

• Discriminant validity:

Comparison of scores on an instrument with other variables or scores from which it should theoretically differ. Measures that should not be related are not. Discriminant validity examines the extent to which a measure correlates with measures of attributes that are different from the attribute the measure is intended to assess.

• Factor structure:

A statistical at the internal consistency of an instrument, usually one that has subscales or multiple parts. The items that are theoretically supposed to be measuring one concept should correlate highly with each other, but have low correlations with items measuring a theoretically different concept.

• Content validity:

Content  validity of a test refers to the adequacy of sampling of the content across construct or trait being measured.  Given the published literature or particular trait, are all aspects of that concept represented by items on the test. It establishes that the instrument includes items that comprise the relevant content domain. A test has content validity if it measures knowledge of the content domain of which it was designed to measure knowledge. Another way of saying this is that content validity concerns, primarily, the adequacy with which the test items adequately and representatively sample the content area to be measured. (For example, . a  math achievement test would lack content validity if good scores depended primarily on knowledge of English, or if it only had questions about one aspect of math only  or  a test of English grammar should  include questions on subject-verb agreement, but should not include items that test algebra skills)

• Face validity:

A subjective judgment about whether or not on the “face of it” the tool seems to be measuring what you want it to measure. :  or when a test appears valid to examinees who take it, personnel who administer it and other untrained observers. It is perhaps the simplest type of validity. Face validity can refer to a single item or to all of the items on a test and it indicates how well the item reveals the purpose or meaning of the test item or the test itself. Face validity is not a technical sense of test validity;  just because a test has face validity does not mean it will be valid in the technical sense of the word.

 

• Criterion-related validity also called Concurrent validity or Predictive validity

Refers to the comparison of scores on a test with some other external measure of performance .The  other  measure should be theoretically related to the first measure and their relationship can be assessed by a simple correlation coefficient .The instrument “behaves” the way it should given your theory about the construct This validity is a concern for tests that are designed to predict someone’s status on an external criterion measure. A test has criterion-related validity if it is useful for predicting a person’s behavior in a specified situation.

• Concurrent validity:

Comparison of scores on some instrument with current scores on another instrument. If the two instruments are theoretically related in some manner, the scores should reflect the theorized relationship. In concurrent validation, the predictor and criterion data are collected at or about the same time. This kind of validation is appropriate for tests designed to asses a person’s current criterion status.

In concurrent validity a proposed test is given to a group of participants who complete other theoretically related measures concurrently ( at the same point in time ).

• Predictive validity:

Comparison of scores on some instrument with some future behavior or future scores on another instrument. The instrument scores should do a reasonable job of predicting the future performance. In Predictive validation, the predictor scores are collected first and criterion data are collected at some later/future point. this is appropriate for tests designed to asses a person’s future status on a criterion

With predictive validity the new test is given to a group of partecipants  who are followed overtime to see how well the original assessment predicts some important variable at a later point in time

Relationship between reliability and validity

·         If a test is unreliable, it cannot be valid.

• For a test to be valid, it must reliable.
• However, just because a test is reliable does not mean it will be valid.

 

• Reliability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for validity!

Construction procedure of an Achievement Test:

If a test has to be really made valid, reliable and practical, then it will have to be suitably planned. For it, qualitative improvement in the test will have to be effected. For this, the following facts should be kept in view:

* The principles available tests will have to be kept in view so that a test can be

planned.

* Kill will have to be acquired in constructing and writing different types of questions. For it are required thoughtful thinking, determination of teaching objectives, analysis of content and types of questions to be given.

General precautions:

Ebel, in his book Measuring Educational Achievement, has suggested the following precautions in test construction:

1. It should be decided when the test has to be conducted in the context of time and frequency.
2. It should be determined how many questions have to be included in the test.
3. It should be determined what types of questions have to be used in the test.
4. Those topics should be determined from which questions have to be constructed. This decision is taken keeping in view the teaching objectives.
5. The level of difficulty of questions should be decided at the beginning of the test.
6. It should be determined if any correction has to be carried out for guessing.
7. The format and type of printing should be decided in advance.
8. It should be determined what should be the passing score.
9. In order to control the personal bias of the examiner there should be a provision for central evaluation. A particular question should be checked by the same examiner.
10. A rule book should be prepared before the evaluation of the scripts.

To construct an achievement test the steps referred below if followed will make the test objective, reliable and valid -

First step:

Selection of Teaching Objectives for Measurement: At first those teaching objectives should be selected from all teaching objectives of subject teaching which have to be made the basis for test construction. There can be several causes of selecting these teaching objectives which have to determine related teaching, such as how much content has been studied, what is the need of student’ what is the importance of specific topics in the content etc. For it, the following table can be used:

Teaching Objectives	Selected Teaching Objectives	Reason for Selections
1. All objectives of the cognitive domain (knowledge,  comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation) All objectives of the affective domain (receiving,   responding, valuing, conceptualization) All skills of psychomotor domain (drawing skill, computational skill, constructional skill, observational skill, problem-solving skill)	1.Knowledge      2.Comprehension       3.Application (Drawing)

Second step:

Assigning Weightage to Selected Objectives: After these objectives have been selected, a teacher assigns Weightage to these objectives keeping the tasks done and importance of objectives. It is desirable to use the following table.

S. No.	Selected Teaching Objectives	Score	Percentage
1.	Knowledge
2.	Comprehension
3.	Application
4.	Skill
	Total

Third step:

Weightage to Content: Content is used as the means of realizing objectives and questions have to be constructed on its basis. Therefore, it becomes necessary to give Weightage to it. There is distinction in the nature, importance and scope of each topic. Therefore, the Weightage should be given to these facts in view; else the test would not represent the whole subject.

S. No.	Topics	Number of Items	Score	Percentage
1.  2. 3. 4. 5.	—–  —– —– —– —–

Fourth step:

Giving Weightage to the Type of Items

In this step, a teacher determines the number of items, their types, their relative marks. For it, it would be convenient to use the following table:

S. No.	Type of Items	Number of Items	Score	Percentage
1.  2. 3.	Long answer type  Short answer type Objective type

Fifth step:

Determining Alternatives: At this level, it is determined how many alternatives or options should be given according to the type of questions. Giving alternatives influences the reliability and validity of a test; therefore, it is suggested that alternatives should not be given in objective type questions, while in essay type questions only internal choice can be given.

Sixth step:

Division of Sections: If the scope or types of questions is uniform, them it is not necessary to divide the test into sections. However, if it is diverse and different types of questions have been specified and the nature of the test seems to be heterogeneous, then a separate section should be made comprising each type of item.

S. No.	Sections	Type of items	Score	Percentage
1.  2.	A  B C	Objective type  Long answer type Short answer type

Seventh step:

Estimation of Time: At this step estimation of the total time the whole test is likely to calculate. Time is estimated on the basis of type and number of items. Some time should be reserved for distribution and collection of answer sheets. The following table can be used for convenience.

S. No.	Type of Items	Number of Items	Time (in minutes)
1.  2. 3.	Objective type  Long answer type Short answer type

Eighth step:

Preparation of Blueprint: A blueprint provides a bird’s eye view of the entire test. In it we can see the topics, teaching objectives, and types of questions, number of items and distribution of scores and their mutual relationships. A blueprint is the basis for test construction. A format is given below-

S.N.

Teaching Objective

Knowledge

comprehension

Application

Skill

Total

Types of Question  Topics

(L)

(S)

(O)

(L)

(S)

(O)

(L)

(S)

(O)

(L)

(S)

(O)

1.  2. 3. 4. 5.

L- Long Answers Type           S- Short Answers Type             O-Objective Answers Type

Ninth step:

Preparation of score key:

A score key increases the reliability of a test So that the test constructer should provide the procedure for scoring the answer script. Directions must be given whether the scoring will be made by a scoring key (When the answer is recorded on the test paper) or by scoring stencil (when the answer is recorded on separate answer sheet) and how marks will be awarded to the test items.

In case of essay type items it should be indicated whether to score with ‘point method’ or with the ‘rating method’. In the point method each answer is compared with a set of ideal answers in the scoring key. Then a given number of points are assigned. In the rating method the answers are rated on the bases of degrees of quality and determines the credit assigned to each answer.

When the students do not have sufficient time to answer the test or the students are not ready to take the test at that particular  time. They guess the correct answer. In that case to eliminate the effect of gusseting some measures must be employed..But there is lack of agreement among psycho-matricians about the value of correction formula so far as validity and reliability are concerned In the words of Ebel ;neither the instruction nor penalties will remedy the problem of guessing. Keeping in view the above opinioned and to avoid this situation the test constructor should give enough time for answering the test idea.

Thus in order  to bring objectivity in a test , it is essential that a tester should be fully clear about the type of answer expected from a question. For this, if they are acquainted with the right answers. Then diversity in scoring can be eradicated.

1.For Objective Type:

S. No.	Item Serial	Answer	Score

 

2.For Long Answer and Short Answer Type:

S. No.	Item Serial	Outline of Answer	Score	Remarks

First try-out of the test:

At this stage the initial format of the test is administered on a small representative sample. After that the process of item analysis be used to calculate difficulty level and discriminative value. There are a variety of techniques for performing an item analysis, which is often used, for example, to determine which items will be kept for the final version of a test. Item analysis is used to help “build” reliability and validity are “into” the test from the start. Item analysis can be both qualitative and quantitative. The former focuses on issues related to the content of the test, eg. content validity. The latter primarily includes measurement of item difficulty and item discrimination.

An item’s difficulty level is usually measured in terms of the percentage of examinees who answer the item correctly. This percentage is referred to as the item difficulty index, or “p”.

Item discrimination refers to the degree to which items differentiate among examinees in terms of the characteristic being measured (e.g., between high and low scorers). This can be measured in many ways. One method is to correlate item responses with the total test score; items with the highest test correlation with the total score are retained for the final version of the test. This would be appropriate when a test measures only one attribute and internal consistency is important.

This initial format is administered on small representative sample group. After that the process of item analysis is used in order to calculate the difficulty level, discriminative value and alternative (in multiple choice items).

First of all in the context of multiple choice items the appropriate choice is also selected and that alternative is rejected which has been opted by the least number of students.

Generally, a test is constructed for average students, Naturally the division according to ability grouping is an essentiality. Generally the ability distribution used in normal probability curve provided the basis for the distribution.

On the basis of  N.P.C., it is advisable that a test must not be constructed for extreme cases, such as backward or gifted students. Therefore the items which have been solved by top gifted students and the items solved by the below most dullard students must be eliminated from the test as they must be treated as to difficult or to easy test items.

In the context of difficulty level, the following difficulty levels are suggested for the selection of questions as per  Katz (1959) also recommendation-

S.N0.	Types of items	Difficulty Level %
1.  2. 3. 4. 5.	Long answer type  Alternatives 5 Alternatives 4 Alternatives 3 Alternatives 2	50%  60% 62% 66% 75%

In the same way which may be measuring the same content area twice as (e.g. who was the founder of Mughal empire in India? And Which empire was formed by Baber in India?) both questions refer to one content area that Baber established the mughal empire in india. Out of these two questions one question be treated as bogus and must be excluded from the test.

In the same way the discriminating power of the items be calculated and the questions with least discriminating power must be excluded from the test. Generally the items having 25 hundred discriminating value are considered suitable from a test.

Preparation of final test:

The test will provide useful information about the students’ knowledge of the learning objectives. Considering the questions relating to the various learning objectives as separate subtests, the evaluator can develop a profile of each student’s knowledge of or skill in the objectives.

The final test is constructed after the above analysis for this a suitable format is prepared and norms are specified. Also, instructions for examinees be prepared.

The test constructed in accordance to the above referred procedure will definitely assumes a purpose or an idea of what is good or desirable from the stand point of individual or society or both.

References-

1. Bean, K.L.: Construction of Education & Personal Tests, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1953.
2. Chassell, J.M.: Test for Originality, Journal of Educational Psychology, 1916.
3. Hawkes, H.F.: The Construction & Use of Achievement Examinations, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1936.
4. Kelley, T.L.: Interpretation of Educational Measurement, World Book Co., Yonkers, 1939.
5. Micheels, W.J.: Measuring Educational Achievement, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1950.
6. Walker, H.M.: Elementary Statistical Methods, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1943.
7. Whitney, F.I.: Elements of Research, Prentice-Hall, New York, 1950.