A Study of Aural Learning with and without the Speaker Present

Abstract

The quantity and quality of aural learning present problems wherever there is a radio and learning is the primary objective. Sound equipment is common in schools and yet few of the problems concerning its efficient use have been solved. As a matter of fact, with the speaker in the room no universally ac cepted best method of obtaining the greatest quantity and quality of aural learning has ever been established. Aural learning prob lems, then, have been multiplied by the in troduction of loud speaker presentations. The researches in the field represented by these problems have helped in only a small way to untangle and solve them. After study ing the work which has been done with the problems that could be solved in the field, as presented by W. W. Charters in his pam phlet, Research Problems in Radio Educa tion,2 one is overwhelmed with the lack of information. More facts are needed concern ing the learning of information over the loud speaker in order to establish scientific foun dations for all its predictions.3 A great many of these facts fall directly in the field of psychology. What facts are needed, the gathering of these facts, and their verification are a challenge to those in terested in psychological research. This prob lem was suggested to the writer by a state ment made by Professor D. A. Worcester4 in the closing of a paper read to the 1932 National Institute For Education By Radio. In connection with his report on certain in vestigations he made this statement, I do not know whether or not the scores on the