UNIVERSITY PARK S PA. 9 May 27
From a strictly academic pbint of
Tiew 9 perhaps the best way to get
the most out of today 9 s college
generation is to make them feel
in.
At least thaws what,was_in—
dicated in one doctoral disserta—
tion prepared by,a - member,of the
College Business::,Administration
faculty at The ,Pennsylvania State
University.
What Dr. John W.-Slocum.want
ed to know was whether - . students
felt a greater'sense.of-belonging
if they were scheduled for cours—
es as a group- .and. l „--if;so, did
this sense of cohesiveness result
in higher grades?
And what he.learned was-thiss
Students who .were assigned to
classes as a group._ performed mark
edly better than ;.those who found
themselves in a given class only
by the luck of the draw in7sche—
duling.
"We discovered a.distinct re
lationship between, academic a
chievement and cohesiveness , in a
group s " explains - Dr. Slocup v as
sistant professor of management.
"Not only did the experi
mental group outperform - the non
controlled group- but , •those in
the experimental'group wanted .to
stay together and•ltake , additional
classes as a pAit."
The experiment was-conducted
at the University of:Mashington
where - Dr. Slocum ,, was. working tow
ard his dogtoratea-,. Fortp*-two
students from the Division of
Counseling were selected
as,the experimental group. .
Their class - - participation
and grade scorse=were-matched\a—
gainst three non--experimental
groups taking tle-;.same.courses
in personnel management ? finance
and marketing.
In each instance 4,. the , ex
perimental group Land the non-ex
perimental group were, taught .by
the 'same 6 , 4ffessor us '.:l the same
. _
STEIN.., coat. froze--page .3)- • }
tics they were using on :Thursday
was firing teargas._-like-,grenades
into the crowds•-, -- _.and then: racing
their engines , running their. cars
into the crowds. - They- smashed
one kid pretty bad when they . hit
him he coulti 9 t get out of the way
in time. So what we did was es—
tablish this solidarity thing up
here. We lowered the flag to half—
mast the first day in respect to
James Rector who was killed -at
Berkley 9 Manuel Ramos who was
killed 9 a Puerto Rican;.who was
killed- by an off-duty cop at a
party in Chicago and for the 14
0
text s giving the same test and s
so far as was possible 9 deliver—
!mg the same lecture.
"The students in the exper-
Inent were randomly selected from
the junior class 9" says Dr. Slo
cum. "They w . ererOt officially
advised they were part of a study
although they must have suspected
something because the probability
of the same 42 people scheduling
three different classes at the
same time wasrremote 9 if not im
possible.
Like wise r the professors in
structing the three courses under
review were not advised of the
study so as not to bias their
grading system.
And when the grades in each
. course were posted r the experi—
mental group scored higher than
the non.—controlled classes. In
11.ersonnel management s for example
the experimental group had a class
average of . 2.73 to 2.42 for the
non-experimental group. In finance
it was the experimental group
again. 2.3 to 1.9 9 while in mar
ketings the experimental average
was 2.5 to 2.1 for the non-exper-
imental.
What was possibly even more
significant was thp study atti
tudes and motivation of the exper
imental group.
In a questionnaire completed
by students in both categories 9
Dro Slocum learned
"The experimental g r o u p
studied as a group an d helped
each other out as a ta du. o Even
Newark. And the Jocks came, and
were'here but they didn't give
us much trouhle. The Administra—
tion outofxed us that day when w
let them-get up on the flagpole
and supposedly speak in response
to statements and they
. cut the
lock and raised the flag. So the
next day we decided to lower the
flag agairi and this time to defend
our action. And ,this time the
Jocks were out with our campus
security officials.
WHO ARE THE 'JOCKS?
They are the fraternity guys ? Bill
Stahsfield from the 'Basketball
team ? they were out yelling that
we were desecrating the American
Flag.."the boys in Viet Nam are
fighting to keep it up" you knclic
the super-patriots were out. The
head of security up here...thei
Director of York Camp u s ? Mr. -
Elias; who appears here every
time' we have a demonstration-WHY?
--why? is what We'd like to know ?
as well as s what's that • under
cover agent"s name? [to ,a: friend'
...S-I-double M;.E.41-S. I
to the point of dividing up the
'homework., which may not necessar
ily be what I had in mind.
"The students told us they
also found themselves interacting
academiclay to a greater degree.
Instead of the normal drift of
conversation in a dormitory--
sports dates and the.like-they
were talking about problems they
were having in their finance
course or their maketing course.
The non-experimental groups had
no partieular feeling onlhe sub
ject. \ /
So what Might, .all this mean
for education today] Dr. Slocum
was asked.
Well a number-Of schools--In
diana. University 9 Florida State 9
University of Kansas 9 Bates col
lege in Maine 9 to name a few- ! --are
assigning students to classes as
a group to determine how well the
system works on their campuses.
And *4i le he concedes the
pry`? gal problems of scheduling
might well be a mitigating fac—
tory Dr. SlocUM maintains:
"There were indications that
scheduling students to courses as
a group helped them adjust to
their campus. If freshmen 9 say
were assigned to courses as a
group in their first or second
terms, it might be very helpful
to them in getting a feel of their
campus, a feel of their courses,
a feel of what . college study is
all about. At a large campus to—
day it , s just so easy to get lost
and lose .our identit ."
KIRKLEY Ccont. from PO3
the social atmosphere. He
would like to build a "com
plete" social atmosphere
here, one. in which only the
major_events would be sche
duled----specifically the
Homecoming Dance, the Chri:-.
stmas Cranberry Cotillion,
Las Vegas Night, and the
Prom/Prom-to-Dawn. The re
maining majority of events
would be planned on a short
range program vith two weeks
notice. This would enable
programs to conform to the
mood of the _campus—what we
want when we want it.
"I would like to con
clude," Kirkley said, "with
a few comments on a word...,
Humanity. In this world we
live in, we seem to have
lost our sense of humanity.
We are too concious of ex-
ternal forces, such as re
wards, pinions, trends, and
fads instead of doing what
we feel is right. 1 hope we