EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22504, 23 February 1935, Page 12

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

It was through the generosity of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the president of which visited Dunedin last* week, that the New Zealand- Council of Educational Research was established. The Council has adopted a constitution in terms of which branches, or institutes, have been, or are being, formed in each of the four larger centres of population in the Dominion, and it is not difficult to realise that the success of the whole scheme of research will depend ultimately on the vigorous performance by the institutes of their functions. Without the detailed help and criticism of the institutes, it is observed in a brochure which the Council has issued, “ researches will tend to become merely academic, and without the weight of their backing in both the educational world and the community at large the findings of the Council will remain sterile of practical work.” The information at present before us gives a rather vague idea only of the general form of research —how it is to be begun and the lines along which it is to be directed. The .Council has undertaken, however, to issue from time to time an “approved list of researches,” setting out some of the definite projects which need to be undertaken in order to complete portions of the general scheme. It has intimated, also, that its chief task will be a survey of the organisation and administration of the education system of the Dominion with a view to discovering, first of all, the degree of co-ordination between its pai-ts and, secondly, the extent to which it is sensitive to the rapidly-changing needs of the community. Out. of this arises the question of the extent to which the education system determines the national life. This in its turn prompts another question: How much of a child’s knowledge, skill'and attitudes of mind is due to formal teaching, how much to incidental “ picking-up ” from the social environment, and how much to sheer growingup? It is not easy to see in what way the research that is conducted will produce an answer to this question that can be accepted as conclusive. It is certainly, however, an interesting and important line of investigation that is here suggested —more interesting and not less important than some of the other questions concerning which, it is to be gathered, research will be instituted. A large field of investigation is to be covered if all the various problems that are mentioned by the Council in its brochure are to come under consideration. The field is so large, in fact, that the possibility of its being comprehended in any five-year plan may be regarded as somewhat remote. There is no form of public activity upon which so many

persons profess to be authorities as on that of education, and there is none, perhaps, about which so many discordant views are expressed. It will be the duty of. the investigators, however, to present facts only. The Council will interpret the facts and it offers the assurance, which might be thought to be unnecessary, that it is “ definitely not an instrument of propaganda.”