CHAPTER XV 

 THE EFFICIENCY OF TRAINING METHODS 



THE nature of the modifications which are wrought in 

 the behavior of an organism varies with the method of train- 

 ing. This fact is recognized by human educators, as well as 

 by students of animal behavior (makers of the science of 

 comparative pedagogy), but unfortunately accurate measure- 

 ments of the efficiency of our educational methods are rare. 



Whatever the subject of investigation, there are two pre- 

 eminently important aspects of the educative process which 

 may be taken as indications of the value of the method of 

 training by which it was initiated and stimulated. I refer 

 to the rapidity of the learning process and its degree of per- 

 manency, or, in terms of habit formation, to the rapidity 

 with which a habit is acquired, and to its duration. Of these 

 two easily measurable aspects of the modifications in which 

 training results, I have chosen the first as a means to the special 

 study of the efficiency of the training to which the dancing 

 mouse has been subjected in my experiments. 



The reader who has followed my account of the behavior 

 of the dancer up to this point will recall that in practically 

 all of the discrimination experiments the number of tests in 

 a series was ten. Some readers doubtless have wondered 

 why ten rather than five or twenty tests was selected as the 

 number in each continuous series. I shall now attempt 

 to answer the question. It was simply because the efficiency 

 of that number of tests, given daily, when taken in connection 



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