A Critique of Belle Boone Beard's "Testing Sociology Instruction"Author(s): C. Horace HamiltonSource: Social Forces, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Oct., 1945), pp. 73-74Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2571523 .

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TEACHING AND RESEARCH IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 73

8. Time allowed for test. As indicated above, some students did not complete the total 105 items on the original test, hence comparative scores were based on the first 90 items; however the students who attempted to answer 105 may by this method have been penalized.

It is the unanimous opinion of the Committee on Standards and Measurements and those mem- bers of the Southern Sociological Society who have painstakingly cooperated in the experiment that the experience of working and thinking together on this problem has had far-reaching values through establishing an objective attitude toward their own courses, in encouraging toleration, under- standing, and frank and critical discussion, as well as through stimulation of study and research.

The experience of the Committee further in- dicates that these tests with improvements should prove valuable: (1) as a measure of achievement in a given Introductory Sociology class; (2) as a means of comparison of classes from year to year; (3) as a measure of general agreement with ref- erence to content and emphasis in Introductory Sociology courses; (4) as an instrument for de- termining the relative standing of transfer stu- dents; (5) as an aptitude test for admission to graduate work; (6) as a measure of comparing the courses in different institutions; (7) as an indica- tion of relative emphases by different instructors; (8) as a contribution to the establishing of regional and perhaps national norms.

A CRITIQUE OF BELLE BOONE BEARD'S "TESTING SOCIOLOGY INSTRUCTION"

C. HORACE HAMILTON

North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering

T HE report of the Commission on the Teaching of Sociology represents the most significant and the most valuable work yet

done by the Southern Sociological Society or by any other similar group in the United States. The report shows the good results that come from cooperation among sociologists working contin- uously and intensively on a worthwhile project over a period of years. It is to be hoped that the Society will continue to sponsor such activities.

The outsider will be impressed by the fact that the Commission went about its task in an ob- jective, realistic, and courageous manner. There was no desire or tendency to justify "what-is" or to apologize for poor and inadequate instruction in sociology. Perhaps the Commission was, because of its scientific zeal, a trifle too critical of the conditions which they found.

It is most gratifying to note that the Commis- sion considers sociology as not a separate isolated course of study but that it is rather an important part of a system of education involving close rapport with the student, the times, and the region. The Commission rejects an all too prevalent idea: that sociological instruction should concern itself only with theory, concepts, abstractions, and generalizations which have no close and vital bearing on today's problems in the region or the

needs of the college student. Concepts, theories, and generalizations we must have, but the final test of sociology in the modern South is: Does it point the way toward solution of tke practical problems of group living in a rapidly changing world?

Not only was the Committee concerned with the objectives and the subject matter of sociologi- cal teaching but they were also concerned with the quality and efficiency of instruction. As- suming that there is a common subject matter in introductory sociology in the various institutions, are students getting it? Are teachers putting it over? Is the long (6 hour) course more effec- tive than the shorter courses? Is one textbook producing better results than another? Are effective examinations being used? Are we teaching students something they already know? Is there an aptitude for sociological thinking and analysis among some students? Can a standard- ized testing technique for sociology be developed for use in most colleges of the South and elsewhere? These are the most important questions which the Committee on Standards and Measurement set out to answer.

This Committee was not satisfied to make a survey. Rather they planned and carried out carefully and thoroughly over a period of several years an experiment in testing. What is more

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74 SOCIAL FORCES

amazing is that this task called for the cooperation of scores of colleges and professors as well as the participation of several thousand students. Although many difficulties were encountered, the Committee has completed the experiment with satisfactory results. It is to be hoped that this type of experimentation will be carried on further.

The most concrete and practical product of the Committee's work is the development of a stand- ard test in introductory sociology of 100 questions -divided into two sets of 50 questions each arranged so as to be as nearly equal in difficulty, comprehensiveness, and so on as possible, without actually containing identical questions. In the *process of developing and standardizing this test the Committee was able to answer many of the questions referred to above.

Was the effort worthwhile? The Committee was all too modest in stating their conclusions and in evaluating the results. No doubt the greatest benefit from the testing project is to those who participated in it. Others will benefit in pro- portion to their own study of the reports and to the use they make of the test.

Needless to say, no reasonable person will

claim that the testing instrument is perfect. Further use of it may be expected to reveal weak- nesses. The passage of time and the emergence of new problems will call for frequent revisions. Sociological knowledge, if it is practical and useful passes quickly into popular knowledge. We may well anticipate therefore that the content and emphasis in sociology will gradually change and that new testing devices will therefore be developed.

As a statistician, this reviewer would like to know more about the statistical procedures used in selecting questions and in validating the test. Obviously, the usual techniques developed by educational testers have been employed. Some question could be raised as to the selection of items on the basis of their correlation (though low) with the total test score. Any test should, it is true, measure well in a limited and homogeneous field but at the same time there should also be some heterogeneity. Just where to set the scales in order to get the proper balance between het- erogeneity and homogeneity is the question. The best test might be one in which the reply to every question would be entirely independent of every other question.

SOME REGIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF SOCIOLOGICAL INSTRUCTION

LEE M. BROOKS

University of North Carolina]

F ROM soil to soul no region in the civilized world is m.ore of a challenge to sociological emphasis in education than is the South of

today. That the region will change some of its traditional institutional emphases is inescapable. Every rational person prefers to see these inevi- table changes come by gradualness, not by violence; by voluntary planning rather than by regimentation. He wants intelligence in the driver's seat controlling the motive power of tradition, sentiment, and feeling. How to insure sufficiently rapid, yet orderly evolution; that is the challenge of particular concern to sociology.

What does the South itself really want? If the answer to this question is in terms of a desire for more effective democracy which implies human betterment, then here is a sociological answer:

There will be no effective democracy until the man in

the street adopts the concepts and results of rational social analysis instead of the magical formulae which still dominate his thinking on human affairs. Nor can we have a democracy unless the scholars and scientists do not [sic] occasionally break through the self-established barriers imposed by intra-professional fears and conventions which prevent them from applying their systematized knowledge to the practical problems of the day.'

Despite his potential wealth of good judgment which occasionally finds expression, the man (and woman) in the southern street, yesterday's southern school child, is often bewildered and the victim of magical formulae. About the basic factors in twentieth century volcanic turbulence he seldom has the faintest glimmering because

1 Karl Mannheim, Diagnosis of Our Time (New

York: Oxford Press, 1944), p. v.

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