1.10 MILITARY RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL TECHOLOGY

From the research on media during World War II, two new academic fields emerged, Communication Arts and Educational Technology. (Saettler recalls that W. W. Charters first used the term educational technology, and James Finn is often considered the first to write the term instructional technology [Saettler, 1990, p. 17n].) Generally speaking, communication researchers focused on those aspects of WWII research that impinged on the affect of audience groups. Even though Hoveland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield conducted some research on training films, their main contribution was the extensive investigation of the Why We Fight film series and the attitudes of recruits. This work, in fact, became the basis for the first major scholarly work in the new communications field, Experiments on Mass Communications (Hoveland, Lumsdaine & Sheffield, 1949). Formal academic departments of educational technology did not coalesce at universities until the 60s, but informal work in audiovisual research had been conducted in colleges of education, such as Yale, Columbia, the University of Chicago, Indiana University, and the University of Wlsconsin since the 20s (Hoban & Van Ormer, 1951). As we have seen, the discourses that informed academic audiovisual texts in the 30s included behaviorism, specifically connectionism; mental measurements, specifically early IQ work; social efficiency; and a mixture of persuasion, corpo rate economics, and governmental concerns. Wlth Dale's work ascendant in the 40s, some of these discourses became subordinate for a short while. The nexus of discourses, however, from the late 20s and early 30s ran through the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s until university departments of educational technology were established. In fact, if this original amalgam had not existed, the field would not have been established.

If WWII research formed the basis for the modern field of educational technology, it is important to understand which theories of learning inform that work. What assumptions and concepts were important to the researchers, and what values impelled them to join the enterprise. Again, how this body of knowledge was established can be ascertained by examining the rhetoric of this research.

It is our theses that certain psychological strands of extant audiovisual discourses formed a basis for investigating film and other media in the Army and the Navy during this period, but that specific military discourses entered the field at this point in time and helped shape educational technology in the academy. Both psychological and military discourses are evident in the WWII research texts. Furthermore, we believe that the juncture of behaviorism (this time, operant conditioning, not connectionism) and military pedagogy was fortuitous (a marriage made in heaven), and together they formed a solid theoretical base for the field. The way knowledge was structured in operant conditioning and military pedagogy was quite similar.

1.10.1 Military Training

Military pedagogy, which should more rightly be called military training, had existed for many years before WWII but was refined in the preparation of thousands of recruits during this conflict. It was training rather than education and had to accomplish very specific objectives in a short period of time. This training did not have time to be other than top-down in delivery. In addition to being hierarchical, it broke instruction down into small parts, often modularizing curriculum. It used demonstration, supplied opportunities for many trials or practice sessions, and was often self-paced. (Pressey's self-paced prewar teaching machine was ripe for induction into the military. With Skinner, Pressey expanded the capabilities of the machine to include simulations for pilots, but the innovation only built on former military practices of demonstration, trial and error, and self-paced, standardized instruction.) As had educational researchers in the 20s and early 30s, the Army and Navy made use of IQ tests as screening devices to place recruits in appropriate training units.

1.10.2 Training and Curriculum

There is ample evidence of the influence of military training on audiovisual and classroom practices. Books published after the war provide information on mass training. Military training had to be, of necessity, "quick, efficient, and standardized.... More learning in less time was perceived to be a necessity and became an immediate goal . . ." (U.S. Navy Department quoted in Miles & Spain, 1947, p. 4). We have already encountered notions that curriculum needs to be efficient and effective; but to those ideas, we now add goals of speed and standardization. It is important to point out that this approach was absolutely necessary to prepare recruits to fight:

. . . the majority of men trained for military duty were not accustomed to serious study and prolonged mental concentration. This condition, plus the diversity of backgrounds, tended to encourage the development of instructional programs based on "learning by doing" and appeal to all the senses. Especially were these techniques of visualization thought applicable to trainees with less than average mental ability. The generally accepted thesis was that trainees would learn more in less time and retain more of what they did learn for a longer period of time through the use of visual aids. The following statement . . . is characteristic of - a generally prevalent viewpoint in all military instruction: "To accelerate learning, as well as to graduate the lowercaliber student who reported in increasing numbers, instructors reduced difficult principles and operations to the simplest terms by visual, auditory, and othermeans" (Miles & Spain,1947, pp.4-5).

Several aspects of this passage are of interest, but the urgent overall message here is that the necessity to train quickly thousands of recruits with varied academic ability led to reducing instruction to its simplest terms. There was obviously no room for critical thinking in wartime training. Yet, at this specific moment in time, when behavioral educational psychologists were designing instruction and audiovisual specialists were producing training films, we believe that certain beliefs about instructions grew out of

these practices. In this curricular procedure, the audience had to be well understood, the objectives of instruction had to be precise and clear, and evaluation measures had to be concrete. It was as if education had to be reduced to instruction that further had to be reduced to training. The trouble with this reduction was that, after the war, a reductive training model was introduced to curriculum and textbook design and, ultimately, to teacher-training programs and classrooms. The constrained reductive model of audience, task and evaluation, which served the Armed Forces so well, was transferred by the educators who designed it back into the public school arena. The training model was equated with instruction, and education for a time did not open up. The critique of behavioral objectives mounted in the mid-70s unseated the training model as the central trope of curriculum theory, but it is still part of the model that informs many instructional design techniques today. About these training manuals, Walt Wlttich says:

Incidentally, the training guides (which I wrote) were based on the generalizations that I uncovered in writing my Ph.D. thesis . . . [Whey included training for] films on how to handle weapons, ah, also the Brooker films on how to weld bulkheads and how to weld steel plates together and that kind of how-to-do-it film. The whole objective, or the goal rather, was to give the instructor who was drafted into an instructional position, with which he was probably not too familiar, some tangible, direct guidance in how to intrb duce, how to involve the learner, and how to use intelligently, a 16-mm training film.... The guides were written for the instructors to be placed in the hands of the students, of the enlisted men, the draftees. But in many instances, it never got beyond the teacher, because the teacher then felt this was a good way to interpret the situation. I was so enthusiastic about the possibilities of increasing the usefulness of films through appropriate introduction techniques and preliminary techniques (Wittich, n.d.) [italics ours].

Here is fledging rhetoric about what would later become design elements. Although certainly not the first, Wlttich was writing about instructional design elements, but not identifying them as such in his dissertation of 1944.

1.10.2.1. Day-to-Day Military Training. No matter what design or training models film educators used during the war, there were day-to-day problems about screening and reception. Louis Forsdale describes some hurdles:

. . . there were some very interesting things that lim [Finn] got involved with, and that I had the pleasure of helping him carry through. One of the interesting things was that the classrooms that were being used in Leavenworth were huge. I mean 800 students in a single room; that was the largest classroom probably, down to the smaller classrooms of, like, 200 in a single room. Those classrooms, by the way, were filled with people [whose] lowest rank [was1 major. One of the things that Jim did was develop standards for the visibility of materials that could be seen by 800 people, by even the person in the last row (Forsdale, 1979).

This was training at its most basic. These educators, while following an efficient training model, often, did not have the luxury of time to create certain instructional films. Forsdale continues:

We found tbat it would be terribly useful if we had raw footage, motion picture footage, on hand in Leavenworth, just raw footage, not cut into films at all. And one of my jobs eveq week was to go down to Kansas City, Missouri, which was about 30 miles away-45 revolver strapped around my waist, not having the slightest idea what I would do if push came to shove-accompanied by two MPs, and a plane came in eveq week (to Kansas City) with different footage of prime-was footage from all tbeaters. [11 brought it back and we had two men and they all but memorized what was in the footage. And then they would go to Colonel so and so, wbo was teaching about important bridges, new important bridges that the Germans were using, and he would say, "By the way, l've got 3 minutes of footage that came in last week. I wonder if we could incorporate thatT' Whereupon the instructor took it upon himself [to say Yes]. It was veq bad form to say No, because the general was always in favor of backing Jim up on these ventures (Forsdale, 1979).

For us, this anecdote provides a quick gloss on instructional design in wartime and the interplay of authority from both the military and audiovisual spheres.
Robert Frost says, "And reality broke in with all of its matter-of-factness." War was the reality of the 40s, and Floyde Brooker reminds us of the authenticity of Frost's obsenadon:

We had altogether 20 million men in the Armed Forces and all of them were trained with films. Some of the training was ridiculous. Well, I'll explain that. At one point in the war, they decided that there were too many modon pictures for all the soldiers to see. So the brass went down the list of films, and they selected 57 films that eveq soldier should see. So they sent out wires all over the country to all the forts and training places. The general out in charge of Fort Hayes in Columbus [said] "look at this list of films.'' He figured out that the biggest place he had on this post was the mess hall. So he had breakfast served at 5 o'clock. And by running them (the films) at 5-hour lots, all the men by midnight that night could see all 57 films. And they saw them one right after the other for 5 1/2 hours each sitting. But he was the most pleased commander you ever saw in the country, because he sent a telegram back to the War Department that night: "Order So and So Received. Order Executed." And we audiovisual people always said the word executed, that was really the word for it (Brooker, 1975).

1.10.2.2. Forlnalizing Training. But the written war discourse formally entered curricular materials during and after the war. Miles and Spain help us understand the manner in which methods of training became inscribed in the Army and Navy and ultimately in public classroom texts:

The most pervasive influence throughout the training program tending to extend the production and use of training aids was the fact of military [italics theirs] dominance and control of training.... Directives and "doctrine" in a military institution have the effectiveness of legal compulsion, in practice if not in theoq. If a decision, or even a suggestion, is made at the "top" to employ a particular device in teaching signaling, for example, this device will be used. Or if it is thought advisable for all trainees to see a particular film, then these trainees will see the film. A dramatic example of this thoroughgoing influence is the fact that most Army men in the continental United States saw the movie Two Down and One to Go within a few days after VE Day.... Training aids designed for particular instructional situations became virs ally mandatory, and these inspections and visits tended to assure compliance with directives and ~~nm«datixs (Miles & Spain,1947, p.8).

Far from being critical of military pedagogy, Miles and Spain were writing a descriptive book, Audiovisual Aids in the Armed Services, for the Commission on Implications of Armed Services Educational Programs. The transfer of this method of training was being explored for schools. This commission, authorized by the American Council on Education, published 12 books in 1947 and 1948 to explore the implications of military training for public education. Some titles were Educational Lessons from Wartime Training (Grace et al., 1947); Area Studies in American Universities (Fenton, ssn); Improving Textbooks the Army and Navy Way (Frauens, 1948); Curriculum Implications of Armed Services Training (Goodman, 1948); Opinions on Gainsfor AmeAcan Education from Wartime Armed Services Training (Chambers, 1948). George Zook, president of the American Council of Education in the 40s said of this series:

The Commission on Implications of Armed Services Educational Programs began work in July 1945. It undertakes to identify features of the wartime training and educational programs worthy of adaptation and experimentation in peacetime civilian education of any and all types of levels. It also undertakes to make available to the public well-considered answers to the questions: What should education in America gain from the experience of the vast wartime training efforts? What are the implications for education and the national culture and strength, now and in the future? (Miles & Spain, 1947, p.97).

These texts are important here, in fact more important to public education than were the audiovisual set published by the American Council on Education and mentioned above. Wshat they indicate is that general educators, not only AV educators, carried lessons about how to teach from the Army and Navy back to their civilian classrooms. Among them were teachers and administrators who were convinced of the efficacy of military training and, consequently, ripe for the upcoming "programming" of the curriculum by instructional designers and the fiat to teach by behavioral objectives.

To return a moment to the rhetoric of the quote from Miles and Spain, we note the introduction of words and concepts that had not been generally encountered in curriculum, nor in AV texts prior to WWII. There is dominance and contrDls directives and doctAne, legal compulsion; we had not often encountered the term trainee before this time. Also, notions of inspections and compliance are new.

Methods of teacher training in the Armed Services were explored for transfer to public classrooms. Teacher training, like behavioral protocol, was standardized in the military.

Voice, diction, gestures and other pelsonality traits were stressed as pertinent to the effectiveness of the teacher.... Supervisors also assisted instuctors in developing other good teaching habits, for exampb, standing aside fiom blackboards or other gnphic aids and using pointers (Sles & Spain,1947, p.10). Although these were excellent teaching hints, there was an attempt to standardize the appearances of teaching, just as marching. The content to be taught was prewritten; strategies were ignored.

1.10.2.3. Designing Texts. Methods of designing military manuals were gleaned for clues to the design of schoolroom texts. The pride of the Armed Forces, however, were the standardized manuals that they produced during the war years and released after the war. Many of them were selfinstructional, stepwise texts "in modern magazine style containing all the basic information which students should acquire in primary training or in advanced training" (Miles & Spain, 1947, p. 11). Publicity men, professional editorial staffs, and commercial artists had been drafted into the Armed Forces to help design and produce these manuals:

. . . the fact that such manuals were thought necessary and were accepted so wholeheartedly indicates that civilian textbooks perhaps could often be improved in format, size of print, and degree of visualization (Miles & Spain, 1947, p.12).
Benefiting fiom these well-designed manuals, however, were the Army and Navy technical reports of audiovisual research. Most of them were presented in black textured covers with large gold lettering and official gold seals. The 8 1/2-by-11 report was designed in double columns with many different-sized headlines in both bold and plain text. Font size was varied in the heads, and there was plenty of white space in the text Ample use was made of welldesigned graphs and charts, and the text was easy to read. The magazine influence was evident in these reports and has remained so in at least part of the educational technology field today, namely, that of instructional design. To get a feeling for the structure of some of these training manuals, consult any one of a number of local production textbooks on the market today. They are good cookbooks and certainly supply the student in a production class with enough information to get started.

1.10.3 Content and Rhetoric of War Research

T,he research conducted in World War II consisted primarily of investigations into the training power of film, and the results are common knowledge today in many educational technology graduate programs. We learned that we use motion to teach motion tasks, that film was good for teaching facts, and adequate for teaching concepts, and that it had some effect on motivation and opinion. The reason educational technology researchers used these studies as a base for their work in the 50s and 60s was because they believed that the large number of participants used in the

studies supported the statistics employed to measure results. In a companion piece to Hoban and vanOrmer's 1950 welldesigned, succinct, and terse Instructional Film Research Report, the Instructional Film Research Program, sponsored by the Army and Navy, prepared a 16-page booklet, Practical Principles Governing the Production and Utilization of Sound Motion Pictures (Hoban & vanOrmer, 1950) that summarizes the longer succinct version. The booklet again is handsomely designed in an 8 1/2by-ll inch format with a professionally lettered buffcover with a brown binding. On the final page of the booklet the authors conclude:

Four conclusions which apply to motion pictures in training, orientation, and information clearly emerge from the review of film research:

1. The educational effectiveness of films can be improved, but to do so steps must be taken all along the line from the origin of the film idea to the utilization of the film in instruction, and not simply at the production stage.
2. The effectiveness of films in instruction depends on the relationship of the film content to the audience and the context of their use, and not simply on the film itself.
3. Within the film, treatment of the content in terms of psychological and instructional principles governing audience reaction is of greatest importance. Film techniques involving special effects and elaborate musical scores are of minor importance.
4. Of all the devices of mass communication, motion pictures and their counterpart, television, are unquestionably the most powerful (Hoban & vanOrmer,1950, p. 16).

Additional research, conducted during WWII, explored the effectiveness of other audiovisual modes of instruction as well as the appropriate environment for the presentation of instructional materials.

1.10.4 A Pre- and Postwsr Voice

The difference in voice, namely, form of address, tone, and language use, may be compared in two similar pre- and postwar projects by the same author. In 1937, Charles Hoban, Jr., contributed "Part Three" and "Part Five" to Motion Pictures in Education, A Sumtnary of the Literature (Dale et al., 1937). "Part Five" was a 54-page summary of "Experimental Research in Instructional Fllms'' and recounted the film experiments conducted to date. In 1937, Hoban reports the findings of the Knowlton and Tilton studies in the following manner:

Small, statistically reliable, differences in favor of the classroom groups, were obtained in six out of ten comparisons in immediate tests; in four of these six, a difference was still evident the following September (Hoban & vanOImer,1950, pp.8-41).

The point of comparing the more general description with the precise, scientific version is not to cast aspersions on either. In fact, readers wishing to replicate Knowlton and Tilton will benefit from the second exposition. But it is important to note the evolution of this scientific language. With Knowleton and Irlton (1929), Freeman (1924), Rulon (1933), and Devereux (1933), practices of laboratory experimentation were introduced to the audiovisual field, and they applied these practices with state-of-the-art competency. These practices were refined, however, with the war research and, at that moment, permanently inscribed in the dominant discourse of the field. We do not suggest here that the child-centered theories of learning would have suited adult recruits in the Armed Forces, but the reverse did occur. The audiovisual discourse established in WWII training and research was applied to children in their classrooms. As we listen to Hoban's voice before and after the war, we can identify specific concepts that the moresophisticated application of true experimental designs in the military contributed to the field.

In "Part Five" (Dale et al., 1937, pp. 307-61), Hoban rarely uses the word experiment but favors the phrases experimental research or experimental study or experimental attack. With the use of the adjective instead of the noun, Hoban implies these studies are not experiments but similar to experiments. In fact, he tips his hand on this topic when he notes, "In educational research, this law (holding one variable constant) is a principle to be approximated, not a condition readily obtained" (Dale et al., 1937, p. 315). The term experiment is used liberally in the Army, Navy Report (Hoban & vanOrme, 1950, l-l-C-I) with no caveats; it has been sanctioned.

In writing a section of the 1937 text (Dale et al.), Hoban lists the "Criteria for Evaluation of Experimental Research in General." They are:

1. Significance of the problem
2. Selection of factors for study
3. Assumptions
4. Appropriateness of general procedure
5. Significance of raw measures
6. Representativeness of sarnpling
7. Adequacy of data
8. Analysis of data
9. Interpretation of observations and analytical findings (Dale et al., 1937, p. 312).

Yet, as Hoban (Hoban & vanOrmer, 1950. 1-1-C-1) evaluates research after WWII, his headings for reporting all studies are Experimental Design, Findings, and Evaluation. Some entire expositions under the "Evaluation" heading follow:

Evaluation. As we mentioned above, there seems to be a disagreement in the research findings on this problem. The collateral evidence is somewhat in favor of distributed showings. However, Ash's study involved a sufficient number of films and suffcient diversity of population to support the conclusion that, under instructional and physical conditions sometimes found in practice (where the instructor plans no immediate discussion of the film), l-hour film sessions may be conducted without substantial loss in overall group learning. This conclusion applies to film sessions involving a subject divided into three or four major and self-contained sequences. Rate of development and content density probably also enter into the problem of long and short film sessions to influence the result (Hoban & vanOrmer,1950, pp. 8-38).
Evaluation. This study lends support to the theory that relevant introductory remarks have ao anticipational or motivational effect, as well as to the theory that learning results from the practice effect of repeating material in different symbolic forms (Hoban & vanOrmer,1950, pp.8-36).

A number of things occur in these quotes which clearly indicate the tacit formation of a professional discourse that will control entry into the field. It will constitute a style to be taught by professor to student. This rhetoric, complex with cumbersome sentence structure, yet with precise adjectives and nouns, is a laboratory style not seen to this extent in audiovisual discourse before this time. Was there a necessity for this voice? One might answer Yes when considering the culture of the academy, especially that of educational psychology departments. Founders were, after all, establishing academic turf. We speculate that writers hoped the "scientific" style would clarify the communication, or deliver a more accurate message. We note that it did reach for accuracy, yet in their haste for a professional style, Hoban and vanOrmer (and other authors) became sloppy epistomologists. They use the term theory, twice above, to designate a thesis. Hoban did not make such a mistake before the war, and the rich notion of theory becomes reduced to thesis or further reduced to hypothesis. In the Ash evaluation above, the phrases rate of development and content density, introduced for the first time at the end of this report, tend to obfuscate rather than clarify the evaluation. Their meanings are private.

1.10.5 Military Manuals in the Schools: Postwar Curriculum

In the late 40s and early 50s, Army and Navy training manuals such as Photography, Vol. 1 and Photography, Vol. 2 (Bureau of Naval Personnel, 1952) became quite popular in vocational and technical schools. This was, after all, the period of the life adjustment curriculum, and by 1949 more students were studying health, music, and art than any other fields. More than half the subjects in the public high school curriculum were in the fields of social studies, vocational education, home economics, and agriculture (Perkinson, 1968). There was a new emphasis on aviation in the curriculum which led to the founding of schools such as New York High School of Aviation Trades. Thousand of manuals were prepared by the Armed Services, either by their own personnel or by civilian subcontractors, sometimes at universities. The United States Armed Forces Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was one such subcontractor (Kliebard? 1993). No author's name appears on these manuals, which were wrinen in the formulaic stepwise fashion of military rhetoric. By 1952, the photography volumes were in their fourth printing, along with thousands of other training manuals. Although "how to" manuals existed in trade schools prior to WWII, it can be said that the military perfected this genre for vocational and technical education. Undoubtedly, these manuals influenced the structure of later instructional development texts. Although it was necessary during wartime to motivate men to fight, even a photography manual urged postwar students to arms:

The camera is a weapon just as a banleship's big guns are weapons.... A vital reconnaissance or engagement picture may determine the plan or strategy that decides a battle.... You are the important man-the man who establishes the viewpoint of the camera, which means the viewpoint of the Navy (Bureau of Navy Personnel, 1952, Vols. 1, 3, p. 17).

Learning a topic for war or armament was a patriotic value that slipped into the public school curriculum in the 50s, not only in trade schools like Aviation Trades High School but also in the general teaching of mathematics and science. This value was reinforced by the passage of the National Defense Education Act (Becker, 1987). These training manuals were replete cookbook-like texts designed for self-study. Because of the premise, however, that recruits were not smart, the tone of these texts was often patronizing:

"Now do you take off? Well not quite yet. But you're getting warmer.... Now use a bit of simple algebra. If that term frightens you, forget it. Just say that you will take a short cut to finding the amount of ground which the picture will covei' (Bureau of Naval Personnel, 1952, Vol. 2, pp. 172,173).

On these pages of the photography volume and on many other pages, the author has employed what later became known as instructional design elements (Gagne & Allen). The unknown author uses questions to gain and/or maintain atention, and positive feedback is provided much as it is in programmed instruction.

The rhetoric of military training combined with that of operant conditioning entered the discursive audiovisual space during World War II and after. The mechanistic language of instructional materials distributed the effects of this combined discourse in classroom textbooks, programmed materials, and instructional media.

1.10.6 Postwar Scholarship

Research in the military and on university campuses became inextricably conflated after WWII and remains that way today. James Brown notes that "the universities then [during wartime] as now (1970s) were playing an important role in the whole armed forces program" (Brown, n.d.). Two representative military/university research studies to be published in the 50s were Motion Pictures as a Medium of Instruction (Fearing, 1950; see Fig. 1-14) and Instructional Television Research Reports (Twyford & Seitz,1956). Both texts have some notable similarities; the studies are tightly controlled and true experiments, and the reports stress the statistical and experimental nature of this enterprise. This research appears to be more and more like that conducted in a psychology laboratory. The word subject indicating a study participant appears for the first time in our reading of audiovisual research. Fearing (1950), in fact, uses subject to indicate participant and elsewhere to indicate topic to be studied Twyford and Seitz (1956) do not; for topic to be studied they use the word lesson. Neither text uses the word audiovisual; Fearing (1950) uses the words film, motion picture, and medium, but shies away from audiovisual, as do Twyford and Seitz (1956). They use the words television, telecasts, moving pictures, and kinescopes. These three authors were professionally located outside of colleges of education: Fearing in social science and Twyford and Seitz in psychology. We see a tendency here, and in other 50s texts, for some scholars to distance themselves from the prewar audiovisual research and to attach themselves to the ''official,'' rigorous, and mechanistic research of the Armed Forces. Fearing, who finished his research in 1944, sounds, what we find, to be the last warning in this period about the borrowing of experimental design:

There are important limitations in such a program. It is doubtful if complex relations between content and the individual exposed to it can be fully expressed within the limited and arbitrary confines of pencil and paper testing techniques.... Testing procedures may yield very useful information, but it is important to remember that the problem of the psychological impact of motion pictures is not solved by these devices alone (Fearing, 1950, pp. 102-03).

But after that caveat, he proceeds to ignore the limitations and interpret the results of his studies, as if they could measure the impact of films on viewers.

Twyford and Seitz, psychologists, do not discuss these limitations, and, gradually, we observe the erasure in the literature of the flaws of the experimental model. It becomes inscribed in the discourse as the appropriate model; it has been made official by military research. It may be said that the before-and-after design, using film as a stimulus, which was developed by Peterson and Thurstone (1933) for their part of the Payne Studies, grew into the true experimental design that still resides at the heart of educational technology research. The manner in which this model became inscribed is rhetorical and similar to the way the discourse on behavioral learning theory developed. Early in the century, when someone asked Watson how he would account for emotions within his stimulus-response model, he replied that emotions were distal variables that he and other behaviorists would address later, but, currently, he wished to study molar variables. Well, the distal variables fell out of the discourse and were never considered (or considered by a few as drives) when behaviorism dominated psychology (Becker, 1977).

The emphasis on experimentation can be seen in the contents of the Fearing (1950) book.

The Twyford and Seitz (1956) military technical report is bound in the same official-looking black-and-gold format as described before and makes good use of charts and diagrams. The variables studied tend to be similar to those employed in WWII film research, i.e., retention of learning, effectiveness, novelty, and screen size. It was strange that this particular set of instructional television findings were ignored by the initiators of instructional television in the 50s and 60s (Becker, 1987). These reports, which were sponsored by the Human Engineering Department of the U.S. Naval Training Device Center but conducted in the Psychology Department at Fordham University, have an early application of the flowchart in the audiovisual field. Seitz was head of the Navy's Human Engineering Department, which may have appropriated concepts such as flow diagrams from the Navy's work on programmed machine language in the mid40s (see Fig. 1-15). And the human engineering field was the area in which the systems concept was established (Encyclopedia of Computers, Science and Technology, Vol. 7, p. 429).
In both this and the Fearing text, we see an early use of the word subject to designate study participant, but here the word is never used to designate topic of study.

1.10.7 See and Hear

The audiovisual contingent returning from war duty organized an important journal, See and Hear. Although there had been journals in visual education before See and Hear, they had not been established by a group of educational technology founders. Walter Whittich recalls it's begimungs:

I thought it would be a great idea now that the field was growing, and the war years were over-everybody was very enthusiastic-to gather up all this tremendous talent that had been developing in the training aids group. Such men as Noel and Bernardis and Jim Brown, oh, gosh, you know, that whole gang that came back from the war. I prevailed again upon my very good friend, John Guy [Fowlkes] to use his influence with a local businessman.... He ran Eau Claire Book and Stationary Company. And he had a printing press up there.... It was possible to gather together about 25 of these returned audiovisual buffs from the war (about 1946) and get them together and committed to the idea of starting a magazine that was a real forward-looking outreach and struck across the whole spread of education. Each would bring to it at least one article a year on his own innermost and most constructive thoughts. And this became See and Near (Whittich, n.d.).

This journal represented an effort to get media formally adopted in the classroom. Audiences included not only teachers and librarians but school administrators and legislators as well. In the statement of purpose of Vol. 1, No. 1, the editors, Walter Wittich, C. 1. Anderson, and John Guy Fowlkes say:

We are well past the time when we should formulate plans for audiovisual education in terms of free materials. Audiovisual communication via good teaching equipment is here.It is here to stay as a working part of our classroom environment.
We, therefore, have passed beyond the point of emergency appropriations, PTA gifts, service club sponsorship, scrap-paper drives, and other precarious policies of financing audiovisual education. Now that audiovisual materials must become an integral part of teaching techniques, more solid budget provision must be made. Only insofar as audiovisual materials enjoy a budgetary status comparable to that which other school equipment enjoys can the program of audiovisual learning approach full effectiveness. Isn't it, then, high time that we also examine the financial cost of a well-coordinated program of audiovisual education in our schools and make necessary budgetary provisions for it?

Figure 1-14. Table of contents from Motion Pictures as a Medium of Instruction: An Experimental Analysis of the
Effects of Two Films, 1950, Berkeley, University of California Press, v-vi.

These are the purposes of See and Hear (Wlttich, Anderson, Fawlkes, See and Hear, Vol. I, No. 1). These founders were attempting to move the audiovisual field from the periphery in classrooms to the center by establishing formal links with funders, i.e., legislators private sector funders. Even at the classroom level, the area-to become professional-had to have alliances with government and business. 1.10.7.1. McClusky: While See and Hear was growing, there was a flurry of scholarly audiovisual activity. An AV pioneer, who had been writing since the 20s, published a helpful bibliography for the field in 1950, with a second edition in 1955 (McClusky, The A-V Bibliography, 1955). See Figure 1-16. The size and style of the book is similar to the military reports of media research released during and after WWII. An 8 1/2by- 11 -inch format is covered in gray with maroon lettering; the book looks official. In the second edition, a condensed table of contents with graphics appears before the full table of contents.
The condensed table is similar to many tables in children's dictionarys and reference books of the time, and one used in some military training manuals. The full table of contents divides the field into the same categories as do the summary books and textbooks of the 30s and 40s. But even in the 1955 edition, McClusky-now at UCLA and, perhaps, with Frank Fearing who never uses the term audiovisual-still uses the term audiovisual and the initials A-V. An interesting feature of this text and one that is important here, since we are exploring the formation of the academic field, is a listing of audiovisual doctoral dissertations completed in the late 40s and earlier. Two points are of interest here: the work of leaders and future chairs of Instructional Technology (IT) departments and the universities supporting AV research before the formation of IT departments. See Figure 1-17.

1.10.8 The Nebraska Study

In 1952, Wes Meierhenry published the final report on the "Nebraska Program of Educational Enrichment Through the Use of Motion Pictures" (Meierhenry, 1952). This had been a Carnegiefunded study and one of the first large, major educational media studies funded by private-sector money. It foreshadows the multimillion-dollar investment of the Ford Foundation just a few years later. (The Ford Foundation attempted to jump-start the diffusion of instructional television in public school classrooms.) The Nebraska statewide effort to introduce film in the public schools was based on the following premise:

During and after Wo}ld war 11, reports from exservicemen and educators who served in the educational program of the Armed Forces showed that a wide variety of instructional materials, particularly motion pictures, had been found effective in the training of members of the Armed Forces.... The use of materials by the Armed Forces gave new impetus and direction to their general use (Meierhenry,1952, p.11). In a chapter entitled, "Planning for Action," Meierhenry reviews several decades of experimentation with educational film, citing Wood and Freeman, and Knowleton and rllton in the 20s; Rulon, Dale, and Arnspiger in the 30s; Carpenter, Whittich, Hoban, Jr., and Hovland, Lumsdaine and Scheff~~eld in the 40s. Again, we see the 50s authors leaning on the substantial but limited (in number) work of a small circle of AV researchers. Gone again are any direct references to learning theories from the table of contents and the body of the text.

 

I. The Philosophy and Psychology of Teaching with Audio-Visual Materials II. Audio-Visual Teaching Materials and Their Use III. Elementary Schcols IV. Secondary Schools V. Hisher Education VI. Administration of Audio-Visual Instruction VII. Research on Value and Utilization of AudioVisual Materials VIII. Miscellaneous

Figure 1-16. First table of contents from The A-V Bibliography, 1955, by F. McClusky, Dubuque, lowa, Wm. C. Brown.

We conclude that tacit theoretical assumptions underpinning the Nebraska experiments are behavioral. Project members conducted state-ofthe-art educational research in Nebraska public schools over a period of several years. Five of the book's chapters (V, VI, VII, VIII, and XIII) are based on doctoral dissertations conducted under the auspices of this project (see Fig. 1-18). Those aspects of students' learning from film are evident in the subheads of one of those chapters, "Motion Pictures Enrich Learning," based on Guy Scott's doctoral dissertation (Meierhenry, 1952, pp. 5571). They are:

Experimental Design

Reliability of Film Tests

Statistical Procedure

Test Results for the First Experimental Period

Composite Test Results for Two Years

Tests Results for Retention

Summary of Test Results in the Science Area

Summary of Test Results in the Social Studies Area

Summary of Test Results in the Convocation Area

Summary of Tests Results on Retention Conclusions

On the 16 pages of the chapter, there are 11 tables, lmost one per page, and the chapter concludes with these zaragraphs:

In general, film groups and control groups learned about the sarne content as measured by standardized tests, and the film groups learned significantly more of the material presented by the films. It is possible to devote an amount of time at least equal to that used in this experiment for instruction by means of motion pictures and maintain a level of achievement equivalent to that where motion pictures are not used.
A program of motion pictures can be used to supplement the subject-matter offering of the school and will result in significant achievement on a variety of topics. By this means, a school may increase the general educational development of the student body at relatively small cost in time and money.
There is no reason to believe that retention of material suffers as a result of the use of educational motion pictures. Rather, the evidence shows some overall gain in retention of information when films are used in instruction" (Meierhemy, 1952, p. 71).

Weber, J. l. Comparative Effectiveness of Some Vsual Aids in Seventh Grade Instruction. Columbia, Teachers College, 1921. Published by Educational Screen, 1922, pp. 131. McClusky, F. D. An Experimental Comparison of Different Methods of Visual Instruction. Chicago, 1922. Condensed version, in Frank N. Freeman, ed., Vlsua.' Education, University of Chicago Press, 1924, pp. 83-166. Arnspiger, V. C. Measuring the Effectiveness of Sound Pictures as Teaching Aids. Columbia, Teachers College, 1933. Teachers College Contributions to Education, No. 565. Lewin, W. Photoplay Appreciation in American High Schools. New York, 1933, D. Appleton-Century, 1934, pp. 122. Hoban, C. F. Jr. A Critical Evaluation of the Experimental Literature on lestructional Films. Duke, 1935. Summarized in Motion Pictures in Education. H. W. Wilson Co., 1937, pp. 307-66. Rasmseyer, L. L. A Study of the Influence of Documentary Films on Social Attitudes. Ohio, 1938. Hall, C. C. High School Science Students Preferences of Illustrated Materials. Colorado State College of Education, 1940. Abstracted by David Goodman in Educational Screen. Vol. 20, Dec. 1941, pp. 434-35. Brc.wn, Kenneth Willia.-n. The Visual Arts in Secondary Education. Ohio, 1942. Cypher, Irene Fletcher. The Development of the Diorama in the Museums of the United States. New York, 1942. Abstracted by David Goodman in Educational Screen, Vol. 21, Sep. 1942, pp. 273-74. Goodman, D. l. Comparative Effectiveness of Pictorial TeachingAids. New York, 1942. Abstracted in Educational Screen, Vol. 21, Nov. 1942, pp. 358-S9, 371. Miles, John Robert. An Evaluative Survey of Educational Recordings for Classroom Use. Ohio, 1942. Vandermeer, A. W. The Economy of Tgme in Industrial Training: An Experimental Study of the Use of Sound Films in the Training of Engine Lathe Operators. Chicago, 1943. Summarized in Journal of Educational Psychology. Gibson, Ernest Dane. Communication Sound-Slide Scripts, New York, 1944. Wittich, Walter Arno. Sound Paths to Learning: A Comparison of Three Classroom Methods of Using Educational Sound Films. Wisconsin, 1944. Condensed in, Wittich and Fowlkes, Audio-Visual Paths to Learning, Harper and Bros., 1946, pp. 135. Miller, Mervyn Vincent. The Development, Production, and Evaluation of a Vocational Guidance Film in Student Orientation on the College Level. Stanford, 1945. Witt, Paul W. F. In-Service Education of Teachers in the Use of Audio-Vsual Materials of Instruction. Columbia, Teachers College, 1947. De Kieffer, Robert E. The Status of Teacher-Training in Audio-Visual Education in the Forty-Eight States. Iowa, 1948. Finn, James D. A Study of MilitaryAudio-Visual Programs Particularly at the Command and General Staff School, Wth Some Implications for the Instructional Organization of Colleges. Ohio, 1949. Abstract in, TheAudio-Visual Reader, Wm. C. Brown, 1954, pp. 350-53. Iverson, William. J. A Definition of Teaching Competencies with Audio- Vsual Materials. Stanford, 1949. Lumsdaine, A. A. Ease of Learning with Pictorial and Verbal Symbols. Stanford, 1949. Allen, William H. An Experimental Study of the Effectiveness of Commentary Variation in Educational Motion Pictures. Los Angeles, California, 19SI. Summarized in, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 36, Jun. 1952, pp. 164 68. De Bernardis, Amo. A Study of Audio-Visual Education in Oregon Public Schools. Oregon, 19SI . Guss, Carolyn. A Study of Film Evaluation and Selection Praaices in Twelve Universities and Colleges with Recommendations for Improvement. Indiana, 1952. Hyer, Anna L. A Study of Possible Deterrents to the Use of Motion Pictures Within a School System Where Films and Facultiesfor Use Were Provided Indiana, 1952. White, F. A. An Evaluation of the Program of the University of Wisconsin School of Education for Civing Competency in the Use of Certain Selected Audiolrsual Methods. Wisconsin, 1952. Iverson, M. T. A Historical and Structural Survey of Audio-Visual Techniques in Education, 1900 1950. Iowa, 1953. McTavish, C. L. Effect of Repetitive Film Presentations on Learning. Pennsylvania State, 1953. Moldstad, John Alton. A Study of the Relative Effects of Film Narration Listenability on the Learning of Factual Information and the Development of Incidental Vocabulary. Indiana, 1953. Saettler, L. P. The Origin and Development of AudioVisual Communication in Education in the United States. Southern California, 1953. Torkelson, G. M. The Comparative Effectiveness of a Mockup, Cutaway, and Projected Charts in Teaching Nomenclature and Function of the 40mm Antiaircraft gun and the Mark 13 Type Torpedo. Pennsylvania State, 1953.

Figure 1-17. University doctoral dissertations from The A-VBibilography, 1955, by F. McClusky, Dubuque, lowa, Wm. C. Brown, 190-97.

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter IIIl Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter Vl Chapter Vll Chapter Vlil Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter Xl Chapter Xll Chapter Xlil Chapter XIV

Planning for Action Launching the State-Wide Plan Providing the Instructional Materials Motion Pictures Enter the Classroom Motion Pictures Enrich Learning Motion Pictures Enrich Learning(Continued) Motion Pictures Modify Beliefs Motion Pictures Influence Educational Achievement Motion Pictures, Intelligence, and Enrichment Four Years of Working Together at the State Level Four Years of Working Together at the Higher Educational Level Four Years of Working Together in a Cooperating Secondaly School A State-wide Program Planning for the Future

Figure 1-18. Table of contents from Enriching the Curriculum Through Motion Pictures, by W. Meierhenry, 1952, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press.

The tacit assumption here is that variables can be isolated and controlled, and that careful measurement can locate cognitive gains in students. According to app}opriate guidelines for the conduct of research at that time, there was no discussion of the students who were subjects in the studies. Even in the chapter "Motion Pictures Modify Beliefs," in which dissertator Jack Peterson quantifies student response (Meierhenry, 1952, pp. 88-134), there is no heading for students. The headings do include:

Administration of the Pretests

Administrations of the Post Test

Method of Scoring the Belief Scale

This action of ignoring the students does not reflect on the doctoral candidates in the project, or their major professors. They were, in fact, following rigorous methods for the conduct of scientific study, but the influence of the social efficiency movement and its concomitant learning and

measurement theories are, by now, firmly inscribed in the dominant discourse running through educational technology, and it is, unfortunately, a narrow discourse. (There is not much use of the word subject, which is actually an interchangeable part, to indicate students here. Most often the authors use the terms, experimental or control groups and the word student.)
On the last page of the text, however, Meirehenry, for the first time, exposes his beliefs about media and learning:

Throughout the history of civilization there have been great teachers who have contributed much to the practice of teaching. Such men as Erasmus, Comenius, Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Froebel, and Dewey called attention to the sterility of many learning situations and urged the correction of these situations through the use of more concrete experiences. To provide concrete experiences out of which may develop meaningful concepts, generalizations, and principles is the main purpose for using audio-visual materials in education. When teachers understand more adequately than they do now, the essential elements for learning to take place in the complex human organism, when they understand more adequately the kinds of experiences necessary to produce desired changes in behavior, when they use more skillfully a variety of instruments and devices to discover whether the desired changes in behavior have taken place, at that time a happier, more satisfying, and more worthwhile educational experience will await the girls and boys in the schools of Nebraska. The Nebraska Program of Educational Enrichment Through the Use of Motion Pictures has helped to open the door to this new educational era (Meierhenry, 1952, p. 228).

This is an interesting statement, because the author cites a list of child-centered educators, in fact the very educators cited by many AV writers in the 40s. But, in the second paragraph, he switches back to the black-box theory of stimuli power to change behavior. It is as if his desire to help teachers and children breaks through the reductive epistemology that shackles the field at this moment in time.

1.10.9 Applied Texts in the 1950s

In the 50s, there was a new interest in the publication of audiovisual texts for the study of the field and the application of media in classrooms. Three of the texts had a wide distribution and are of interest to us here: A-V Instruction, Materials and Methods, Audio-Visual Materials and Techniques, and Audio-Visual Materials: Their Nature and Use. It is interesting to note that the field was officially still termed audiovisual, even though the war researchers were shying away from that title in their research publications. The paradox, however, was that most of these 50s education textbooks were authored by men who had participated, in or out of the services, in the writing of military training manuals. But for the first time, these books offered education professors and teachers in training a choice in selecting textbooks. Obviously, the market for these books in colleges of education existed, because major publishers, such as McGraw-Hill and Harper and Brothers joined the enterprise.
It is rare that we have an author of an important textbook talking about the manner in which the first edition was conceived and written, but Walter Wittich spoke frankly about Audio-Wsual Materials: Their Nature and Use:

Well, the first edition was on the market in 1953, which was the culmination of S years of classroom tryout in the extension classes throughout Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, and the middle of Minnesota.
The book is the book because of the very wonderful working reladonship that Charlie Schuller and I enjoyed in 1953 and still enjoy now.
[Charlie] came into the audiovisual department [University of Wisconsin] as my associate.... We began working very strenuously together on organizing extension classes in audiovisual throughout the state. In 1948, for example, we had 24 extension classes running simultaneously throughout the state of Wisconsin. There were six of us teaching those. One time we were using Edgar Dale and his very remarkable book. Due to a series of circumstances, we decided that we ought to try one of our own, so we began developing the materials" (Wlfflch, n.d.).

Schuller also talks about how the first edition of AudioVsual Materials; Their Nature and Use came about:

It came about through accident, outside influence, and so on. John Guy Fowlkes had gotten a contract with Harper and Bros. by which he got a certain percentage out of generating needed books in the field-like a 1% royalty on all books produced, and he had a "Century in Education" series which was well conceived and well designed. Old lohn Guy came to us one day and said, "Well, you know I don't know of any real books in this field." He had heard of Edgar Dale's book and the impact it had. And he said, "Don't you think it would be a good idea if we put one up?" Neither Walt and I- although we had done some writing- were all that hot about writing a book, but the combination of our innate interest and John Guy's pushing created that first thing. And it was twice as much work as we had ever anticipated, maybe 3 or 4 times. And I doubt very much if we would have got into it, if not for that little accidental association. John Guy, of course, was both our major professors (Schuller, 1978).

Today, educational technology practitioners are often so focused on the details of academic life that the necessary political work on behalf of students and machines is accomplished by amateurs outside the field. That was not the case in the early years. ponsider the work that I. Keith Tyler and the Institute for Education by Radio and Television (IERT) did to get public television channels reserved for education:

One thing that happened at the Institute [for Education by Radio and Television, ERT, at Ohio State] was that this became the place for the commissioners from the Federal Communications Commission to come out and get educated about the educational side of broadcasting. They saw commercial broadcasters all the time, but educators, in those days, didn't have money to have lawyers to appear before the commission.... And so those who really took the public interest seriously used to come to the institute just to see what was being talked about and what was going on.... And if a new commissioner came on, they'd say, "Go out to Columbus and see what's going on." And so a new commissioner, a lawyer from the east side of New York who was very cause minded . . . Frieda Hennock, came out to the institute and was very impressed . . . and she said to herself "this is my cause." I am going to make this a cause (Tyler, 1977).

The FCC had put a freeze on the development of new television stations in 1948, until research about their positioning and operations could be assembled and presented to the commissioners. Originally, it was a 1-year freeze that was extended until 1952. Tyler and others mounted a case for the reserving of television stations for the exclusive use of education. It is an important moment, because it was the start of public television. His story is colorful:

. . . Let's see if we can . . . ask perrnission to come to the FCC while the freeze is on and insist, in their new allocation, that they reserve channels for education. So we had a meeting in the fall of 1950, and the NAEB (National Association for Educadonal Broadcasting) was represented, I . . . represented . . . the University [Ohio State] or the Institute [ERT], and the Office Of Education [was represented]. I would say there were about 12 of us, maybe 1S. And the general idea . . . [was] we'd have to dig it out of our own universities or public school systems' pockets for the expenses.
. . . Frieda Hennock was there, the commissioner, and she said "This was a great cause, and we ought to do something about it" (Tyler, 1977).

Tyler relates that Hennock directed him to make a formal effort for the official FCC hearings on the allotment of channels in the fall of 1952. He chaired the effort, and Hennock recommended that his educational group be represented by an attorney:

And Frieda Hennock . . . said, "Why don't you go for General Telford Taylor?" And we said, "Who is he?" And she said that he was the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials for the Army. And before that he was the chief counsel for the Federal Communications Commission, and he really knows his way around, and he's with this very dedicated [to social causes] law fi;rm on Wall Street (Tyler, 1977).

Taylor agreed, and they went about the business of assembling witnesses.

And so we had Democrats and Republicans; we had senators and representatives; we had AAUW; we had the PTA; we had labor; we had manufacturers (Tyler, 1977).

1.10.10 And They Were Successful

There remains a tendency today to say "Well, things are so complicated, we (educational technology scholars) could have little or no influence on the national scene." And the national scene, with the proliferation of computers in the classroom and the threat from the private sector of proprietary schools, needs our input. In the 60s and 70s, many scholars were trained with monies from the National Defense Education Act, and there was an expectation that this funding would continue. Even though it did not, the field became entrenched in the academy, and there was less need for scholars to be political in the manner of the founders. As we nodded, we became shut out of national educational technology politics. One interpretation of this situation could be that only early innovators are politically effective. Another, although not separate, is that some aspects of national politics were anathema to the securing of tenure.

The rhetoric of the founders and those who follow indicate that the basis of this field will always be hardware, with its concomitant marketplace and governmental interests. If we turn away from this, our voices will remain within the academy. We will be talking to ourselves. Whatever tempering influence we could have will be lost. Our founders presented us with a good model of action.