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Statistics for Psychology, 6e (Aron/Coups/Aron)
Chapter 7 Introduction to t Tests: Single Sample and Dependent Means
Note: Some problems require tables, which can be copied from the textbook: the t table in the
Appendix (Table A–2), and the power and sample-size tables in Chapter 7 (Tables 7–11 and 7–12).
3) The process of estimating the population variance from the scores in the sample involves
A) using a special table to find the estimated variance.
B) proceeding normally but interpreting the results with caution.
C) dividing the sum of squared deviations by N – 1 instead of N.
D) multiplying the sample variance by the degrees of freedom.
Answer: C
5) If a sample includes three individuals with scores of 2, 3, and 4, the estimated population variance is
A) 1
B) 1.33
C) 2
D) 3.67
Answer: A
6) If a sample includes three individuals with scores of 4, 6, and 8, the estimated population variance is
A) (2 + 0 + 2) / 3 = 1.33
B) (2 + 0 + 2) / 2 = 2
C) (4 + 0 + 4) / 3 = 2.67
D) (4 + 0 + 4) / 2 = 4
Answer: D
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 70
7) In the formula for estimating the population variance from the sample, the sum of squared deviations
is divided by
A) the number of participants in the sample.
B) the number of participants in the sample minus one.
C) the number of participants in the population.
D) the number of participants in the population minus one.
Answer: B
8) If a sample includes 27 people, the degrees of freedom used in the formula to estimate the population
variance would be
A) 26
B) 27
C) 272
D) √27
Answer: A
9) When estimating the variance of a population from the sample, the sample variance cannot be used
directly because
A) it is based on using absolute deviations.
B) it is based on using squared deviations.
C) it tends to be slightly too large—it overestimates the population variance.
D) it tends to be slightly too small—it underestimates the population variance.
Answer: D
10) If the unbiased estimate of the population's variance is 15, the variance of the distribution of means is
A) 15 / 20 = 0.75
B) 15 / 19 = 0.79
C) 152 / 20 = 11.25
D) 152 / 19 = 11.84
Answer: A
11) The psychologist tests the null hypothesis that the level of depression of fourth graders in this class
does not differ from fourth graders in general at the school and obtains a t score of –0.20. The decision
regarding the null hypothesis would be to
A) reject it.
B) fail to reject it.
C) adjust the power.
D) increase the sample size.
Answer: B
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 71
12) If the psychologist figures S = .85, the effect size (d) is
A) 5 / .85 = 5.88
B) .85 / 5 = 0.17
C) (5 – 4.4) / .85 = 0.71
D) .85 / (5 – 4.4) = 1.42
Answer: C
A professor believes the students in a statistics class this term are more creative than most other
students attending the university. A previous study found that students at the university had a mean
score of 35 on a standard creativity test, and the current class has an average score of 40 on this scale
with an estimated population standard deviation of 7. The standard deviation of the distribution of
means is 1.63.
15) If there were 30 students in the class and the professor wanted to test the null hypothesis described in
the scenario using the 5% level of significance, the cutoff t score would be
A) 35.000
B) 1.699
C) –0.113
D) –2.500
Answer: B
16) In a t test for dependent means, 15 participants are each tested twice. This makes a total of 15 "before"
scores and 15 "after" scores. What are the degrees of freedom?
A) 15
B) 14
C) 30
D) 29
Answer: B
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 72
17) The difference between a t test for a single sample and a Z test for a single sample is the way
A) the problem is restated as a research hypothesis and a null hypothesis about the populations.
B) the mean of the known population is determined.
C) the variance of the known population is determined.
D) the decision about whether to reject the null hypothesis is made.
Answer: C
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 73
23) If 15 participants take a pretest and a posttest and have a mean difference score of 1.5, and if the
standard deviation of the comparison distribution is 0.5, the t score is
A) 0.5 / 1.5 = 0.33
B) 1.5 / 15 = 0.10
C) 1.5 / 0.5 = 3
D) 1.5 / 0.52 = 6
Answer: C
A counseling psychologist developing a technique to reduce procrastination has students time their
procrastination for a week and uses this as a pretest measure of procrastination. Students then attend a
workshop in which they are instructed to do a specific warm-up exercise for studying by focusing on a
pleasant activity. Students again time their procrastination for a week, and the time from this second
week is the posttest measure.
24) If the psychologist wants to see if there is a change (increase or decrease) in procrastination by
students who attended his workshop, the appropriate description of "Population 2" (the comparison
population) would be people whose
A) posttest scores will be lower than their pretest scores.
B) difference scores will be 0 or greater than 0.
C) difference scores will be 0.
D) difference scores will be smaller than their pretest scores.
Answer: C
25) If the psychologist wants to see if there is a change (increase or decrease) in procrastination by 10 of
the students who attended his workshop using the .05 significance level, the cutoff t score(s) would
be
A) –.62, 0, +2.62
B) +2.262
C) –2.262, 0
D) –2.262, +2.262
Answer: D
26) If the psychologist finds that the sum of squared deviations from the mean of the difference scores of
the sample is 135, the estimated population variance would be
A) 135 / 10 = 13.5
B) 135 / 9 = 15.0
C) 10 / 135 = .074
D) 9 / 135 = .067
Answer: B
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 74
28) If an experimenter conducts a t test for dependent means with 10 participants and the estimated
population variance of difference scores is 20, the variance of the comparison distribution is
A) 20 / 10 = 2.0
B) 20 / 9 = 2.2
C) 400 / 10 = 40.0
D) 400 / 9 = 44.4
Answer: A
29) Professor Q has designed a repeated measures experiment. Which information does he NOT need
when looking up the power of his planned study in a power table?
A) whether a one- or two-tailed test will be computed
B) number of difference scores
C) estimated population variance of difference scores
D) effect size
Answer: C
30) A medium effect size (d) for a t test for dependent means is
A) .20
B) .40
C) .50
D) .80
Answer: C
31) Studies using difference scores tend to have larger effect sizes than studies using other research
designs because
A) of the long-standing procedural bias in psychology to set up studies involving dependent means
in such a way as to artificially favor large effect sizes.
B) the standard deviation of difference scores is usually low.
C) participants provide their own baseline, which increases the variance.
D) studies with dependent means usually use a larger number of participants, so larger effect sizes
are easily detected.
Answer: B
32) Which of the following is an assumption for the t test for dependent means?
A) The population variance is known.
B) The population mean is greater than the sample mean.
C) The population follows a normal distribution.
D) The sample follows a normal distribution.
Answer: C
33) If a t test for dependent means is reported in a research article as "t (16) = 2.67, p < .05," then
A) the result is not significant.
B) there were 16 participants.
C) the t score was 16.
D) the t score was 2.67.
Answer: D
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 75
34) If a t test for dependent means is reported in a research article as "t (38) = 3.11, p < .01," then
A) the result is significant.
B) the result is not significant.
C) you can assume a one-tailed test was used.
D) there were 39 degrees of freedom.
Answer: A
35) Your professor asks you to update a manuscript with the results of a t test for dependent means and
provides you with the following information: there were 19 people in the study, the t score was 4.36,
and the result was significant at the .01 level. The best way to present this information would be
A) t (19) = 4.36, p < .05
B) t (18) = 4.36, p < .01
C) t (4.36), p (.05)
D) t (4.36), p (.01)
Answer: B
36) The most likely way for a t test to be presented in a research article for a study with 25 participants is
A) t (25) < significant
B) t (25) = 3.01, p < .05
C) t (24) = 2.94, p < .01
D) t (24) < significant
Answer: C
The items below (# 37 – 39) are based on the following table from a research article.
38) Which of the following differences were significant at the .05 level?
A) Dominance
B) Independence
C) Conformity and Nurturance
D) All of the above
Answer: C
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 76
39) Which of the following statements is most likely to be true based on the results presented?
A) The hypothesis testing procedure probably used one-tailed tests.
B) The various scales probably all had just about the same population variances.
C) The t scores are all larger than the raw difference scores.
D) The hypothesis testing procedure was probably a t test for dependent means.
Answer: D
41) The test used to reach a decision about the null hypothesis when the population variance is unknown
is the __________ test.
Answer: t
42) The formula SS/df provides a(n) __________ estimate of the population variance.
Answer: unbiased
43) The sum of squared deviations from the mean for a sample is 12, and there are 4 participants. The
estimated population variance is __________. (Give a number.)
Answer: 4
44) Given a particular number of degrees of freedom, there is(are) __________ t distribution(s).
Answer: one
45) The more degrees of freedom, the closer a t distribution is to the __________.
Answer: normal curve, normal distribution
46) To find the score in a t table at which the null hypothesis will be rejected, an experimenter must know
the significance level, the degrees of freedom, and __________.
Answer: whether it is a one- or two-tailed test
47) You are evaluating a non-directional hypothesis at the .01 significance level using a t test for a single
sample. If there are 16 people in the sample, the cutoff score (critical value) needed is __________.
Answer: ±2.947
48) When figuring the variance of the distribution of means based on an estimated population variance,
you divide the estimated population variance by __________.
Answer: the sample size, N (N – 1 is wrong)
49) When figuring the variance of the distribution of means based on an estimated population variance
in a study with 20 participants, you divide the estimated population variance by __________. (Give a
number.)
Answer: 20 (19 is wrong)
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 77
50) The symbol S2M represents the __________.
Answer: variance of the distribution of means (or comparison distribution)
53) If the mean of a sample is 95, the mean of Population 2 is 75, and the standard deviation of the
distribution of means is 5, the t score resulting from a t test for a single sample is __________. (Give a
number.)
Answer: 4
54) Testing participants before and after an experimental manipulation is called a(n) __________ design.
Answer: repeated measures, within-subjects, pretest-posttest
55) Before conducting a t test for dependent means on a set of pretest and posttest scores, the two sets of
scores must be combined into one set of scores by figuring __________.
Answer: difference scores, change scores, posttest score minus pretest score for each participant
56) In a t test for dependent means in which 10 participants are each tested twice, the number of degrees
of freedom is __________. (Give a number.)
Answer: 9
57) When carrying out a t test for dependent means with a mean difference score of 20 and a variance of
the distribution of means of 25, the t score is __________. (Give a number.)
Answer: 4
58) When carrying out a t test for dependent means with a mean difference score of 12 and a standard
deviation of the distribution of means of 6, the t score is __________. (Give a number.)
Answer: 2
59) When carrying out a t test for dependent means, a small effect size is __________. (Give a number.)
Answer: .2
60) In the formula for effect size, d is for the difference between the means of the __________ divided by
the variance.
Answer: populations
61) In terms of meeting assumptions of the t test for dependent means, the most common cause of serious
problems is when a one-tailed test is used and the population distribution is highly __________.
Answer: skewed
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 78
63) When the results of a t test are presented in a research article, the number(s) in parentheses that
directly follow the t score is(are) the __________.
Answer: degrees of freedom, df
64) The results of a study using a t test for dependent means involving 45 participants that yielded a t
score of 2.89, which was significant at the .01 level, would be reported in a journal article in symbols
and numbers as __________.
Answer: t (44) = 2.89, p < .01
65) If the results of a study are reported in a research article as "t (29) = 2.31, p < .05," you can conclude
that the result is __________.
Answer: statistically significant at the .05 level
66) A swimming school claimed that the average seven-year-old would be able to swim across an
Olympic-sized pool in less than 2 minutes after taking lessons from their instructors. To test this
claim, a consumer psychologist arranged for eight randomly selected seven-year-old children to take
lessons at the school and recorded how long it took each child to swim across a pool at the end of the
lessons. The times (in seconds) were 60, 120, 110, 80, 70, 90, 100, and 130. What conclusion would the
psychologist draw following a t test for a single sample using 120 seconds as the "known" population
mean and the .05 significance level?
a. Use the five steps of hypothesis testing.
b. Sketch the distributions involved.
c. Explain the logic of what you did to a person who is familiar with hypothesis testing with a
known population variance and a single sample, but who knows nothing about t tests of any
kind (for example, you do not need to describe the steps or logic of hypothesis testing). Be sure
you explain how this problem differs from a problem with a known population variance and a
single sample. Your answer should consist mainly of a thorough explanation of the characteristics
of the comparison distribution and all the figuring you did to determine those characteristics.
Answer:
A) t needed (df = 7), p < .05, one-tailed = –1.895
M = 95; S2 = 600; SM = 8.66; t = (95 – 120) / 8.66 = –2.89
Reject the null hypothesis.
B) No answer in Test Bank.
C) No answer in Test Bank.
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 79
67) An industrial psychologist consulting with a chain of music stores knows that the average number of
complaints management receives each month throughout the industry is 4, but the variance is
unknown. Nine of the chain's stores were randomly selected to record complaints for one month;
they received 2, 4, 3, 5, 0, 2, 5, 1, and 5 complaints. Using the .05 significance level, is the number of
complaints received by the chain different from the number of complaints received by music stores in
general?
a. Use the five steps of hypothesis testing.
b. Sketch the distributions involved.
c. Explain the logic of what you did to a person who is familiar with hypothesis testing with a
known population variance and a single sample, but who knows nothing about t tests of any
kind (for example, you do not need to describe the steps or logic of hypothesis testing). Be sure
you explain how this problem differs from a problem with a known population variance and a
single sample. Your answer should consist mainly of a thorough explanation of the characteristics
of the comparison distribution and all the figuring you did to determine those characteristics.
Answer:
A) t needed (df = 8), p < .05, two-tailed = ±2.306
M = 3; S2 = 3.5; SM = 0.62; t = (3 – 4) / 0.62 = −1.61
Fail to reject the null hypothesis.
B) No answer in Test Bank.
C) No answer in Test Bank.
68) Knowing that a particular laboratory decision task takes the average person 2.5 seconds, an
experimenter found that 30 randomly selected 80 year olds had a mean response time of 2.7 seconds
with an estimated population standard deviation of 1.4 seconds. Using the .05 significance level, is
the mean response time of older people slower than the response time of people in general?
a. Use the five steps of hypothesis testing.
b. Sketch the distributions involved.
c. Explain the logic of what you did to a person who is familiar with hypothesis testing with a
known population variance and a single sample, but who knows nothing about t tests of any
kind (for example, you do not need to describe the steps or logic of hypothesis testing). Be sure
you explain how this problem differs from a problem with a known population variance and a
single sample. Your answer should consist mainly of a thorough explanation of the characteristics
of the comparison distribution and all the figuring you did to determine those characteristics.
Answer:
A) t needed (df = 29), p < .05, one-tailed = 1.699
M = 2.7; S2 = 1.96; SM = 0.26; t = (2.7 – 2.5) / 0.26 = 0.77
Do not reject the null hypothesis; the results are inconclusive.
B) No answer in Test Bank.
C) No answer in Test Bank.
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 80
69) An educational psychologist measured a number of personality traits in a group of junior high school
students when they started seventh grade and again when they started ninth grade. The psychologist
provided the following table in the results section of a research report. Explain these results,
including the underlying logic of the computations, to a person who is familiar with the Z test for a
single sample, but who is not familiar with t tests of any kind.
70) A researcher surveyed 50 students' emotions during an "exam" day and during a "lecture" day in a
particular class. The psychologist provided the following table in the results section of a research
report. Explain these results, including the underlying logic of the computations, to a person who is
familiar with the Z test for a single sample, but who is not familiar with t tests of any kind.
71) A psychologist wanted to study the effect of television violence on concentration of a particular blood
chemical. The psychologist measured the chemical in 40 participants before and after the participants
watched a violent show. In the results section, the psychologist writes: "There was a significant
decline in blood concentration from a mean of 13.41 (SD = 2.48) to 12.38 (SD = 2.69), t (39) = 3.38, p <
.01 (one-tailed)." Explain this result (including the underlying logic of the figuring) to a person who is
familiar with the Z test for a single sample, but who is not familiar with t tests of any kind.
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 81
72) A social psychologist gave a questionnaire about concern for farm workers to seven participants
before and after they attended a film about union organization of farm workers. The results are
shown below with high scores meaning high concern. Using the .05 significance level, do these
results support the hypothesis that the film affected concern for the lives of farm workers?
Answer:
A) t needed (df = 6), p < .05, two-tailed = ±2.447
Difference scores = 3, –3, 1, 2, –3, –1, 3
M = 0.29; S2 = 6.90; SM = 0.99; t = 0.29
Do not reject the null hypothesis; the results are inconclusive.
B) No answer in Test Bank.
C) Estimated d = (0.29 – 0) / 2.63 = .11; approximate power (from table) = .09
D) No answer in Test Bank.
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 82
73) In a study to test the effects of science fiction movies on people's belief in the supernatural, seven
people completed a measure of belief in the supernatural before and after watching a popular science
fiction movie. Participants' scores are listed below with high scores indicating higher levels of belief.
Using the .01 significance level, carry out a t test for dependent means to test the experimenter's
assumption that the participants' belief in the supernatural would change after watching the movie.
Belief-in-Supernatural Scores
Before and After Watching Science Fiction Movie
Participant Before After
A 6 9
B 3 5
C 6 6
D 5 2
E 1 7
F 3 8
G 2 3
Answer:
A) t needed (df = 6), p < .01, two-tailed = ±3.708
Difference scores = 3, 2, 0, –3, 6, 5, 1
M = 2; S2 = 9.33; SM = 1.15; t = 1.74
Do not reject the null hypothesis; the results are inconclusive.
B) No answer in Test Bank.
C) Estimated d = (2 – 0) / 3.06 = 0.65; approximate power (from table) = .09
D) No answer in Test Bank.
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 83
74) An organizational psychologist is hired as a consultant to a company planning to open a coffee house
for college students. The company wants to know if their customers will drink more coffee if the
coffee house is decorated in a Paris motif or in a San Francisco motif, so the psychologist sets up two
similar rooms with the two motifs. Eight students spend an afternoon in each room, drinking all the
coffee they like. The order in which they sit in the rooms is rotated so that half spend their first
afternoon in the Paris room and half in the San Francisco room. The amount of coffee each participant
drinks in each room is shown below. Using the .05 significance level, is there a significant difference
between the numbers of cups of coffee consumed in the two rooms?
Cups of Coffee
Participant Paris San Francisco
A 8.5 8.4
B 4.3 4.6
C 2.0 1.7
D 7.8 7.3
E 7.0 7.2
F 9.1 7.4
G 3.3 3.0
H 3.5 3.5
Answer:
A) t needed (df = 7), p < .05, two-tailed = 2.365
Difference scores = –0.1, 0.3, –0.3, –0.5, 0.2, –1.7, –0.3, 0
M = –0.3; S2 = 0.39; SM = 0.22; t = –1.36
Do not reject the null hypothesis; the results are inconclusive.
B) No answer in Test Bank.
C) Estimated d = (0.3 – 0) / 0.62 = –0.48; approximate power (from table) = .32
D) No answer in Test Bank.
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 84
75) An organizational psychologist wants to know if workers' health would improve if a company gave
workers extra days off. All workers take a standard physical exam twice a year and are given an
overall health rating with higher scores indicating better health. The psychologist selected five
workers at random, arranged to have them receive an additional 2 days off every month over the
period between health exams, and then compared the health scores on the two exams. Using the .05
significance level, do the scores in the table below support the notion that having extra days off
improves health?
Answer:
A) t needed (df = 4), p < .05, one-tailed = 2.132
Difference scores = 6, 1, 2, 2, 0
M = 2.2; S2 = 5.2; SM = 1.02; t = 2.16
Reject the null hypothesis.
B) No answer in Test Bank.
C) Estimated d = (2.2 – 0) / 2.28 = .96; approximate power (from table) = .78
D) No answer in Test Bank.
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Page 85
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To sum up, the Gary school forms a children’s community, which
aims to provide the practical natural education of the old school,
shop, and home which educated our forefathers. It is a necessary
evolution and reorganization of the public school to meet the
changed social and industrial conditions of the modern city. The
school community, by providing a fourfold activity of work, study, and
play, uses the children’s time and keeps them from the demoralizing
influence of the streets. In the “auditorium” it provides a public
theater which may motivate all the work and study. By coöperating
with all the community agencies which provide wholesome activities
for children, it makes them all more valuable and effective. And by
making the school as far as possible a self-sustaining community, it
gives meaning and purpose to all the work, trains the children for the
outside world, and cultivates the social virtues.
IV
Lunch 1¼
This is the new program for a school of eight grades. In the case
of the complete school plant, such as those of the Emerson and
Froebel Schools in Gary, with their twelve grades and their forty or
more classes apiece, the program becomes much more
complicated. But the division of time follows essentially the outlines
given above, the high-school classes resembling the upper grammar
grades’ distribution of time and subjects.
The noteworthy thing about this program, apart from the ingenious
and successful multiple use of the school plant it represents, is the
equable distribution of time between the “regular studies” and the
“special activities.” In the Gary school, the “special work,” more or
less an appendage in the ordinary public school, is as regular as the
“regular work.” Yet the amount of academic work is no less than that
in the ordinary schools. The various fundamental groups are
participated in on equal terms. No subject is slighted, no age is
slighted. The extended school day, which absorbs the “street and
alley time” of the city child, affords ample opportunity for all activities.
No activity is continued long enough to cause fatigue, while the
constant daily cultivation of each activity provides the constant drill
and the thoroughness of training which the ordinary school, with its
short day and crowded curriculum, is compelled to slight. Such a
program seems to be a highly rational distribution of school activities,
as ingenious from the point of view of educational engineering as it is
pedagogically sound. By treating the daily use of the schools as a
public service, the Gary program obtains, for twice the number of
children ordinarily accommodated, twice the number of facilities
ordinarily provided. Each individual is immensely benefited because
all are served. “The only reason why the public—that is, ourselves
collectively—can afford to provide things for each of us individually
that we cannot provide for ourselves privately, is that collectively we
secure a multiple use of the facilities.”
The same principles of administrative economy—an economy
which creates rather than impoverishes—are applied to the yearly
schedule as to the daily program. The Gary authorities find that they
cannot afford to let their plant stand idle two or three months of the
year, and are therefore working toward an all-year school. This effort
coincides with a growing general belief that the long summer
vacations not only demoralize the city child, but are a great waste of
educational influence. At the present time state laws hinder the
completion of the all-year plan. The Gary schools now have ten
months of regular compulsory school, and ten weeks of voluntary
vacation school, but they are working toward an organization of four
quarters of twelve weeks each. This plan was approximated by
Superintendent Wirt in the Bluffton schools before he came to Gary.
Under this scheme pupils are required to attend any three of the four
quarters, attendance in the remaining quarter being wholly voluntary.
In Bluffton it was found that the attendance of the younger children
for the summer quarter was greater than for any other quarter in the
year. With the traditional term organization, many children are
unavoidably absent in the winter on account of sickness and
weather. Under the four-quarter arrangement, however, the allotted
vacation of these children could be so organized as to include this
absence and thus insure thirty-six weeks of schooling. “When people
are given a chance,” says Superintendent Wirt, “it is found that they
do not want to go to school at the same time any more than they all
want to travel at the same time.”
The all-year school would not increase the cost of maintenance.
For with the same number of pupils per teacher, the cost is the same
whether the pupils are all taught together for thirty-six weeks, on the
traditional plan, or whether only three quarters of them are taught at
a time throughout a school year of forty-eight weeks.
The economies which this multiple use of school facilities effects
are so large as to provide ample funds for all the special features of
the Gary plan of education. These savings are in construction, in
operation and maintenance, and in instruction. Savings in
construction alone are very large. Since, under the duplicate-school
plan, two complete schools may be accommodated in one building,
the number of school plants may be greatly reduced. In the light of
the Gary plan, therefore, those cities which are confronted with
problems of school congestion are in the paradoxical situation of
having, not too few buildings, but actually too many. Fewer and
better plants would accommodate their children under the Gary plan.
It must be remembered that the Gary schools at present have
accommodations for many more children than there are children to
use them, and this in spite of a phenomenal growth of population.
The erection of a number of Gary unit plants is less expensive than
the erection of a much larger number of ordinary school-buildings of
the common school type. For the cost of building construction does
not increase in proportion to the size of the building, and large sums
may be saved on the fewer sites required. The diminution in the
number of classrooms in the Gary school plant is a distinct source of
economy, owing to the fact that the classroom is uniformly the most
expensive portion of the school plant. The Gary experience seems to
show that the best and completest unit school plant is also the
cheapest. The plan of having the twelve grades under one roof
avoids the reduplication of expensive equipment in several centers.
And the self-sustaining industrial shops cut off an item of “vocational
training” expense which most cities find almost financially prohibitive.
As for the costs of operation and maintenance, it is obvious that
increasing the size of the school plant makes for economy. The cost
of janitor service, administrative charges, heating, lighting, etc., are
much reduced by consolidation. Nor, in order to effect these
economies, need the size of the school plant be made so large as to
make administration unwieldy. The largest Gary school plant,
operating with all these economies, accommodates only twenty-
seven hundred children, forty children to a teacher, while it is the
intention to reduce the average number of children per teacher to
thirty, and the building capacity to two thousand children.
Finally, the cost per pupil for instruction is decreased by the plan of
specializing and departmentalizing the work, and thus eliminating
overhead charges for supervisors. It should be pointed out again that
all these economies actually increase the educational efficiencies of
the school.
The figures show that the Gary school plan does not increase
public expenditures for educational purposes. The Jefferson School,
built before Superintendent Wirt came to Gary, and representing the
common type of modern school-building, was erected at a cost of
$90,000 to accommodate 360 pupils, with 40 pupils per teacher. This
is a per-capita construction cost of $250, a cost exactly equal to that
of a typical New Jersey High School recently erected at a cost of
$125,000, with a maximum capacity of 500 pupils. The capacity of
the Emerson School, constructed as an ideal Gary school plant, is
1800, with 30 pupils to a teacher. Its cost, with a large playground
and the wealth of facilities already described, was about $300,000.
The per-capita cost of construction was therefore $166. At its
maximum capacity, with 40 pupils to the teacher, the per-capita cost
of construction would be only $111, as against $250 for the Jefferson
School, with no facilities. Further tables of comparative costs will be
found in the Appendix.
The funds liberated by the application of these simple economical
principles to public-school finance are so large as to give Gary the
means to provide, as Superintendent Wirt says, “any kind of a school
desired.” Extraordinarily complete educational and recreational
facilities may be furnished for all the people all the year round.
Money is thus provided for an evening school for adults on an almost
unprecedented scale. The Gary evening schools, held in the four
largest school plants, four evenings a week throughout the regular
school year from 7 to 9.30 P.M., have an attendance over two thirds
that of the regular day schools. The cost of the evening school is
only thirteen per cent of the day-school cost.
The evening schools of Gary resemble a people’s university.
Practically every study authorized by state law is given, and the
bulletin of courses is like a university catalogue. All the shops,
laboratories, studios, and classrooms are thrown open, either to
repeat the day studies or to present more advanced work. All the
work, industrial and academic, is open on equal terms to men and
women. During 1914-15, 4300 students, representing all classes in
the community, are said to have been enrolled in the Gary evening
schools, with an average monthly enrollment of 3103. Over two
thousand of the nine thousand voters at the last city election were
said to be enrolled in the Gary evening schools. There are said to be
more men over twenty-one attending evening schools in Gary than
there are boys of all ages attending the day schools.
The Gary evening schools in the last year have achieved an even
closer articulation of the work of the day and evening schools. A
large number of short-unit courses were offered for busy men and
women who wished particular branches of certain studies, and who
could not remain in school to pursue their studies in the usual way. It
has also been arranged to connect into group units the studies that
bear upon a given industrial occupation, so that the school may
correlate directly with all the occupations of the community, and the
adult worker may come and secure the additional experimentation or
theory which will help him in his work.
In addition to this instruction offered in academic and industrial
work, to the evening pupils is given free use of the gymnasiums,
pools, playgrounds, etc. The playgrounds are artificially lighted so
that games may be played successfully at night. Playgrounds and
swimming-pools are open on Sundays also, and the auditoriums for
lectures, moving pictures, community forums, and the like. All
wholesome social gatherings and entertainments are welcomed any
evening of the week. The auditoriums are freely lent for political
meetings, conferences, meetings of neighborhood or other private
associations. The Gary school plant thus becomes in the fullest
sense a social or community center. The “wider use of the school
plant” here involves almost the widest possible use in the interests of
all classes of the population; for the lavish Gary school plants
contain equipments which serve the needs not only of children, but
of all classes of adults as well, from the well-to-do woman who
wishes to learn French to the sheet-metal worker in the mills.
By using the schools as a public service, the Gary educational
authorities are thus able to provide for all the people facilities at no
more expense than other communities are paying now for meager
opportunities which do not even meet the needs of the children,
while they leave the majority of adults entirely uninfluenced by the
schools. “The private exclusive use of public-school facilities has
meant and will continue to mean,” says Superintendent Wirt, “that all
of the people collectively can provide for only a part of their number.”
The Gary school is evidently a genuine “public school” in a sense
more “public” than is generally known. In many communities the
public school is “still the old private school publicly supported.”
School boards often act as if they were trustees of private property.
They gravely discuss “wider use of the school plant” as if this were
some gracious extension of privilege instead of a public right. The
public in many communities scarcely feel yet that the schools are
their own. The Gary schools seem to have produced a different
spirit. They are public in the same broad sense that streets and
parks are public. They are used with the same freedom and lack of
reserve. In such a community and such a school education would
never be finished. Just as there is no break between common school
and high school in the Gary plan, so there need be none between
child and adult. The child would not “graduate,” “complete his or her
education,” but would tend to drift back constantly to the school to
get the help he or she needed in profession or occupation, or to keep
on enjoying the facilities which even the wealthy private home would
not be able or willing to afford. It is toward such a public educational
ideal that the Gary plan seems to work. Toward this all the
economies and ingenious schemes of organization are directed—
toward making the public schools veritable “schools of the public.”
V
ORGANIZATION