REFERENCES

Cremin, L. A. The Genius of 'American Education. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1965.

Hofstadter, R. Anti-intellectualism in American Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966.

Jackson, P. W. Life in Classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.

James, W. Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals. New York: Dover, 1899.

McCandless, B. R. Points at issue between practical and academic school psychology, Journal of School Psychology, 1969, 7, 13-17.

Mead, M. The School in American Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962.

Meyer, A. E. An Educational History of the American People. New York: MeGraw-Hill, 1957.

Rice, J. M. The Public-School System of the United States. New York: Century, 1893.

Tolor, A., Scarpetti, W. L., & Lane, P. O. Teachers' attitudes toward children's behavior revisited. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1967, 58, 175–180. Wickman, E. K. Children's Behavior and Teachers' Attitudes. New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1928.

DEVELOPMENT INTO ACTION

By ERNEST R. HILGARD

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Education is a very large-scale enterprise, including all of our children, all of their teachers, and a large structure of administrative officers, training and research institutions, plus a large investment in educational facilities and materials. This is commonplace knowledge, but we need to learn how to make the whole process more efficient and effective and sensitive to its social aims. The proposed National Institute of Education is an effort to achieve clarity, and the most careful planning is required if it is to serve its intended purposes. This essay represents some individual reflections on the problems of research in education as a scientific and practical problem, and some conjectures about public and private initiatives as they affect the proposed National Institute of Education.

THE RESEARCH SPECTRUM FROM BASIC THROUGH INNOVATIVE PRACTICE

There is a great deal of artificiality in the distinctions that are made between basic research, applied research, development, and dissemination, but there are some realities underlying these distinctions, and the planners of the National Institute of Education need to be aware of them. The commonest error is to assume that applied research must wait for basic research; that there must be something to apply before there can be an applied science. The whole history of technology belies this: applied progress in metallurgy, navigation, animal husbandry, and many other fields has often been ahead of basic science, and this is also true of education. This is not to deny the importance of basic science, but when one talks about a spectrum it must not be assumed that traffic is all in one direction from basic to applied; the feedbacks are complex, and practical inventions may have an important role in advancing basic science.

The realities behind the distinction between basic and applied science are of two general types, one logical and one social.

The logical distinction is that between a science that is primarily analytical and explanatory, leading to general theories that are parsimonious, elegeant, and of wide scope (basic science), and a science that is essentially synthetic, leading to the design of instruments or programs that serve practical ends (applied science). Either can be good science by any criteria that are set forth; but are interdependent. The social distinction reflects a difference in the involvement of the investigator. Basic science tends to be self-initiated; it is very flexible, so that the investigator follows any lead that seems promising to him.

Applied science tends to be "mission-oriented," so that its tasks are set to some extent by the management of the laboratory rather than by the scientist himself. Time-pressures are different: basic science. moves at its own pace; applied science is in a race with time. The rewards are different. In terms of prestige, higher prestige is usually assigned to basic science. In terms of monetary reward, the reverse may be true in some instances: basic scientists write articles for journals, usually without recompense; applied scientists may take out patents, on which they may receive royalties.

Both the logical and social distinctions produce problems for funding agencies, and the experiences of the Department of Defense, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Science Foundation provide relevant historical precedents that should be known as a new Institute is planned. In the past, the pressure from prestigious scientists has produced a drift toward the basic science end of the spectrum, even in mission-oriented agencies. This will have to be guarded against in the new Institute.

One serious problem that arises is how to apportion funds between basic and applied research. Applied research can be studied in some sort of cost-effectiveness terms, but basic science cannot be judged this way because its results take so long to become socially effective, and there are no guarantees implied. Other students of the problem have come to rule-of-thumb decisions, that some fraction of the total research budget, say 20 percent, should be assigned to basic research, after the total research budget has justified itself through cost-effectiveness estimates.1 Some substantial effort at basic research is essential for two reasons: (1) basic research is the lifeblood of science, and must be supported to keep work going at the frontiers of knowledge; (2) basic research opportunities will at present attract very high-level talent, scientists who will continue to infuse into the applied research the new knowledge that comes through the informal network of communication among the basic researchers.

To make more concrete the kinds of research that can be done in education, the attached Table 1 lists seven types of research relating the psychology of learning to educational practices. The first six of these move through the most basic to the most applied; the seventh is somewhat different, because it bears upon policy rather than upon classroom teaching as such. If I were to interpret the obligations of the National Institute of Education, I would suggest very limited involvement in Type 1, for which potentials of relevance are obscure, somewhat more in Type 2, a heavy involvement in basic research of Type 3, a heavy involvement in applied research of Type 4, and considerable attention to the further steps implied in Types 5 and 6. There must be awareness that some projects must "test the limits" of innovative practice; these perhaps belong in Type 7. If there is a clear distribution of effort and prestige along the spectrum with primary obligations for technological and developmental research and for policy research, I believe that the ultimate aims can be achieved.

1 The proportion of funds designated as basic research in education in fiscal 1967 was 7 percent; in behavioral and social sciences outside of education it was much higher, estimated at 36 percent. See Hilgard. E. R. "The problem of R & D within behavioral and social sciences." Journal of Research and Development in Education, 1969, 2, Summer, 37-48.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC INTEREST AND PRIVATE INITIATIVE

It is possible for the translation of educational research into practice to be furthered by, or inhibited by, powerful groups outside the educational research profession. The direction that the National Institute of Education goes will necessarily have to take into account various interests, including those in the private industrial sector.

In agriculture, health, and engineering, despite all that the Government has done, there is a large private component, in part because of profit possibilities. All sorts of research done through the Department of Agriculture, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, NASA, eventually gets marketed as products sold by the private companies, hybrid corn, fertilizers, drugs, computers, telemetry devices. Education, too, is a fairly large industry, but its relations are somewhat different. The industrial contribution to education has been in (a) school buildings and furniture, (b) textbooks and other teaching aids, such as audiovisual devices, maps, etc., (c) educational and psychological tests, (d) innovative technology, as in programed materials and machines, computer assisted instruction, and (e) new managerial attempts, such as voucher systems, performance contracts, etc. Some industrial giants (IBM, Xerox, RCA, etc.) have entered the field in late years.

Illustrative research

TABLE 1.-Types of Research Relating the Psychology of Learning to Educational Practices

Type 4

Not directly relevant to school practices: neither to the learners taught nor to the skills learned.

Partially relevant to

school practices:
either to children as learners or to acquisi-
tion of desirable cognitive skills.
Relevant to school practices: to children as
learners and to practice on school subject
matters.

Animal maze learning; eyelid conditioning; influence of drugs on memory.

Human verbal learning; concept formation;
tracking eye movements in reading.

Mathematics learning by school-age children;
prior perceptual training in learning to
read.

Relevant because taught by special teacher Computer-assisted instruction; modified alin simulated classroom.

phabets for teaching initial reading; language laboratory.

Results of type 4 in later stages of research.

Adapted from Hilgard, E. R., Atkinson, R. C., and Atkinson, R. L. Introduction to Paychology (fifth edition). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971, p. 541.