12 



Indiana University Studies 



The best Indiana scores, however, are above the Iowa median. 

 If all the Indiana cities could have done as well as the best they 

 could have equalled Iowa. This fact gives plausibility to the 

 Iowa scores and renders them a more practical ideal than they 

 would otherwise seem to be. 



It should be noted, however, that no State score equals Mr. 

 Courtis' ideal of 100 per cent accuracy. Some cities, however, 

 do occasionally reach or approach that level and more often in 

 division than in any other process. 



Comparison of 1915 Scores and 1914 Scores from Nine 



Cities 



Opportunity offers for comparison of the 1915 scores in nine 

 cities with the 1914 scores in the same cities. These are cities 

 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, and 18. The medians for the two years 

 are shown in Tables III and IV. Table III shows the 1914 fifth, 

 sixth, and seventh grade medians with the medians of 

 the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades of 1915. Here you pre- 

 sumably have a year's growth in the same children. (This is, 

 of course, not exactly true, for the composition of the grades has 

 changed somewhat within that time.) With but rare exceptions 

 the children of each grade in each city have made a substantial 

 gain in achievement, thus showing that with the schools working 

 as they do, the pupils have the opportunity to grow. Did the 

 schools actually improve their teaching methods during the 

 year? The answer to this question is found in Table IV where 

 the several grades of 1915 are compared with the corresponding 

 grades of 1914. There seems little doubt that improvement oc- 

 curred in the eighth grade but not so markedly in the other grades. 

 Some cities improved more than others; some did not do so well as 

 in the previous year. As a whole, the improvement is not marked. 

 The teachers seem either to have approached the limit of their 

 power to teach, or they do not know how to make improvement 

 in their methods. 



