SCHOOL QUESTIONNAIRE

Evening Star, Issue 22252, 1 February 1936, Page 4

SCHOOL QUESTIONNAIRE

GREAT RESPONSE TO 8.8. C. QUERIES Statistical experts at the 8.8. C. are in for a busy time. At the beginning of November the Central Council for School Broadcasting sent to over 2.500 listening schools a questionnaire covering every subject dealt with by Broadcasts to schools. And now the replies, nearly 1,900 of them, have come in for examination and analysis. . The 8.8. C. and the School Broadcasting Council throw themselves entirely open to criticism; in fact, demand it. Teachers have been asked to answer such general questions as: “ Is there any way in which you think broadcasting might be of greater service to schools than it is at present?” “ Do you encourage your pupils to discuss the merits and demerits of the different broadcasts?” “Have you any evidence that school listening is training—(a) older pupils, (b) ex-pupils to listen with discrimination to the evening programmes?” In addition to such questions of a general nature, each of the 20 individual broadcast courses is the subject of a separate questionnaire. “ Do straight history talks of 20min have a good effect on concentration?” “ Is the travel talks map-work excessive, dull, even necessary at all?” “ Which English broadcasts have been successful; which have failed?” These, and dozens of other questions, have been asked to ascertain what the children enioy and what they think “ stodgy,” what the teacher likes and what he considers to be useless. Although similar questionnaires have been issued for the past two years, the present drive represents the widest and most detailed attempt ever made by the 8.8. C. to learn what any one section of listeners thinks of it. Response has been greater than on either previous occasion.