Mental Activity in College Classes (Student Estimate of Relative Value of Ten Learning Situations)

Abstract

OVER A PERIOD of twenty years data have ac cumulated in a class the writer teaches bearing on mental activity of college students in different kinds of learning situations. These data show, for the students concerned, wide variation among individuals and appreciable consistency in class averages in the ranking of certain kinds of activ ity in which students normally engage. They show that the typical student in this group thinks he is most alert during written examinations and group discussions and least alert when listening to a fellow student make a report, studying with others, and during the class lecture. The Data. ?As part of the work in a class in High School Methods at Emory University, stud ents were asked to fill out aquestionnaire in which they ranked various learning situations, both classroom and extra-class, in reply to the question: In w h i c h of the situations are you mentally most active ? Mental activity was d e fined as alertness plus concentration. Careful directions were given for procedure in ranking. A copy of the latest questionnaire used is given below. The earliest form contained only seven of the ten situations, the next nine. The report given here will be easier to interpret if the read er will take the time at this point to fill out the questionnaire himself.