Instructors Claim Self-Paced Courses Benefit Students

Two instructors of Physics 1 and Economics 10 said last night that self-paced teaching benefits both students and teachers in spite of the courses' experimental limitations.

Paul G. Bamberg Jr. '63, associate professor of Physics, and Elizabeth K. Allison '67, assistant professor of Economics, summarized before an Adams House audience the results of an innovational teaching study sponsored last Fall by the President's Fund.

Bamberg said that the absence of competition in self-paced instruction is complemented by the student's interest inherent in the method. Bamberg also noted that self-paced instruction reduces the importance of time as a criterion of learning and that the possibility of retaking tests might lead in the end to a better understanding of the material.

Allison said she had observed the advantages of self-paced instruction to teachers. "Not only does one see more of students but one sees most those students who are having the greatest difficulty," she said.

Allison also said that the frequent quizzes offer a valuable feedback mechanism to weekly sections. "If my students all fail a quiz testing a major concept, I have an indication of who is really at fault," she said.

Despite the different experimental conditions of the two courses, both instructors stressed the importance of section leaders in student evaluations. "The evaluation of sections varied more according to section leaders than methods of instruction," Bamberg said.

The experiments separated the courses into a self-paced instruction group and a control group. Bamberg also included a third group of modified self-paced instruction while encouraging the wholly self-paced group to avoid lectures and hour exams. Both of Allison's groups were required to fulfill the usual course requirements.