University Receives Carnegie Grant To Study Use of Teaching Machines

The Carnegie Corporation has awarded the University a $300,000 grant for a special study of the educational potentialities of teaching machines for students from the first grade through college.

The three-year grant is mainly for the work of B. F. Skinner, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, who has worked on the psychological theory behind programmed instruction and the use of machines for teaching.

At least five colleagues, from the Faculties of Arts and Sciences, Law, Business, Education, and Medicine, will work with Skinner.

The Carnegie grant, called the largest ever for the study of programmed instruction, represents a significant recognition by educational leaders of the importance of teaching machines and other forms of programmed instruction to the future of education.

Although much has been published about the use of machines in the classroom, little has been done--except for Skinner's projects at the University--on research and development of such devices.

Francis Keppel '38, Dean of the Graduate School of Education, will head the Faculty committee to coordinate the three-year project. Also participating will be Edward L. Pattullo, assistant dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Frank H. Westheimer, Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry; Edward J. Geary, associate professor of Romance Languages; J. B. Carroll, Roy Edward Larsen Professor of Education and Director of the Laboratory for Research in Instruction; Douglas Porter, instructor in Education; and Wade M. Robinson, executive director of the committee.