New Forms Of Knowledge Research Articles

Changes in the Information and Attitudes of Students in an Economics Course

Arthur W. Kornhauser University of Chicago Although objective examinations have become the order of the day, comparatively few test results have been published that show what happens to the information and attitudes of students between the be ginning and end of specific college courses. Data of this sort are per haps especially worth accumulating in the case of social science courses, where considerable uncertainty still obtains as to proper content and where the question is raised at times whether the students really carry away anything either in the form of new knowledge or changed attitudes. Interesting questions also arise concerning the effects of a course on indi vidual students relative to their intelligence, their information at the beginning of the course, and the grade of their work during the course. This paper summarizes some objective test results bearing on these questions. During 1926-27 and 1927-28 students in a new course, The Economic Order, at the University of Chicago were given before and after tests for each of the three quarters of the academic year. Eesults from the first year's testing have been reported,2 but, for convenience, certain parts of the earlier report will be briefly repeated here in conjunction with the 1927-28 data.