392 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



will find relatively few attempts to summarize and or- 

 ganize previous contributions. As a result there are sev- 

 eral sources of waste. Most of the educational research 

 which has been done is fragmentary. The studies have 

 been based upon too few cases, or have included only 

 minor asjoects of the problem, or have not been carried 

 on long enough to lead to dependable conclusions. Be- 

 cause it is fragmentary much of this work will natu- 

 rally be lost unless steps are taken to conserve it. 



Cooperation has been urged as a means of coordinating 

 and unifying educational research. Workers within cer-. 

 tain areas have formed associations and provided facili- 

 ties for exchanging information in regard to the prob- 

 lems which they are studying or which they expect to 

 study sometime in the future. In this way they believe 

 that duplication of effort can be avoided, or at least mini- 

 mized, and that when two or more persons are engaged 

 in studying the same problem or related problems, co- 

 operation is mutually advantageous. Some leaders have 

 taken the initiative in organizing those interested in a 

 particular field into a cooperative group and have claim- 

 ed that such pooling of abilities and resources will re- 

 sult in superior work. 



In certain types of studies, cooperation in the form of 

 assistance is necessary and in other cases it has doubt- 

 less been beneficial, but it will not correct certain waste- 

 ful tendencies. This can be accomplished only by 

 changes in the attitude and interests of those engaged in 

 educational research. Instead of emphasizing "orig- 

 inal" research they must develop an interest in studying, 

 in summarizing and in organizing the published reports 

 of the work of others. In my experience with graduate 

 students, I have found them much more eager to attempt 

 an ' ' original ' ' study than to inquire into what has already 

 been done. Eecently I inquired of the departments offer- 

 ing graduate work in education concerning the types of 

 theses which they urged students to undertake, or which 

 they found most satisfactory. "Summaries of other in- 

 vestigations," were reported as being among the least 

 satisfactory types of theses. On the other hand, the 

 types most frequently mentioned as being encouraged, 



