RELATION OF FAILURE TO PUPIL SEATING.

By Mayo M. Magoon '18,New York, 1932.

In this brief but excellent monograph the principal of the Framingham (Massachusetts) High School investigates a practical problem of the classroom that should be of interest to all teachers in our schools and colleges. This problem is the relation which exists between pupil failures and pupil seating in the classroom. "Is it true," asks Mr. Magoon, "that there is some connection between possibility of success in a subject and the position which the pupil occupies in that room?"

To secure a satisfactory answer to this question the author asked eighteen high schools in different parts of the country to take part in a survey. In these schools 434 teachers entered the survey, reporting on 8,099 sections and a total of 54,500 students. This geographical spread of the survey, together with the large number of teachers, sections and pupils involved, it was felt, would warrant considerable faith in the soundness of the conclusions reached.

Each of the teachers concerned in the survey received two forms; one an instruction sheet and the other a set of six rectangles, each blocked to represent seats in some given section to be reported upon. On this second sheet the teachers were first asked to indicate whether their pupils were assigned seats or might select their own. For each section studied the subject was asked for (French, History, etc.), the type (College, General, etc.), the year (Freshman, Sophomore, etc.), and the ability of the section (excellent, good, average, poor). In the appropriate rectangle for each section considered they were also to mark all the seats occupied, as well as those occupied by failing students, by passing students who might do better, lay pupils whose seats had been changed because of poor work, misconduct, etc., and any seat formerly occupied by a pupil who had been dropped from the course because of failure. The approximate position of the teacher's desk was also to be indicated.

Tabulation and summarization of the information received from these charts brought out the following facts: that there was an abnormal number of failures in side seats, as well as in those outside of a 60° angle from the teacher's desk in the front center; that the failure ratios for front and back seats showed a normal situation; and that those within the 60° angle and in the center showed fewer failures than the normal. In the side seats where the concentration of failures was greatest the failure ratio proved lower for college sections than for commercial and practical arts sections. In these same seats also the failure ratio tended to increase rapidly through the high school years, was greatest in sections of fair ability, did not increase abnormally according to the size of section, was much greater in sections where pupils were allowed to select their own seats, and varied with the subjects studied, being heavier for classes in English, history, languages and commercial subjects. The survey also brought out the fact that teachers and pupils agreed that certain seats away from the central group were undesirable, and that pupils occupying them were at a disadvantage. Most teachers it was discovered taught from the front center where their visual range was most restricted.

Upon the basis of the facts thus established, Mr. Magoon came to the following conclusions: 1. "There is a tendency toward concentration of failures in certain groups of seats, and the concentration becomes more marked in the upper years of high school.

2. "There are some groups of pupils who, because of their positions in the classroom, receive better supervision and assistance than others.

3. "There are some pupils who need to be brought into positions nearer the teacher.

4. "There is strong evidence in favor of the teacher's assigning seats to pupils.

5. "There is considerable advantage to be gained in frequent changing of seating plans.

6. "Teaching is most effective when it takes place from different positions.

7. "There is a tendency for some pupils to select side seats deliberately in order not to be too close to the center of activity.

8. "There is a marked difference between sections, and the problems of each group must be solved independently of other groups.

9. "There is a limit to the best visual control which a teacher can exert over any section."

In conducting his investigation Mr. Magoon's method has been thorough and scientific. His conclusions are conservative and sound, and should be of real service to teachers who find themselves confronted with classroom evidence of such a problem. More such satisfactory studies of our classroom problems are much to be desired.