Research

Administrative History

In 1939, the New York State Education Department undertook a project to introduce the use of audio recordings to small, rural schools in New York State. The project was geared towards one and two room schoolhouses where at least two different grade levels were taught in the same room.

In 1939, the Division of Research at the New York State Education Department, via grant funding from the Committee for Scientific Aids for Learning, created a series of phonograph recordings on topics informed by the superintendents and teachers in small, rural school districts, implemented their use in classrooms, evaluated their effectiveness through site visits and survey instruments, and then published the results of the project. The stated goals of the "experiment" as it was referred to by the project commit were twofold: to create "a rich source of reference materials for use by others in producing phonographic records as an aide to the enrichment of instruction."