Recent Studies and Practices of the Montessori Educational Method : Ten Years from 1979 on the DIALOG Data-Base

I review recent practices and studies of the Montessori method from 1979 and intend to discover some tasks for future studies. I researched fourteen files in the DIALOG data-base, and tried to find papers from 1979 using the key word "MONTESSORI". Sixty-seven titles of books and papers were output from the DIALOG data-base. I classified them into five large groups. Each large group was further divided into small groups. The following are these large groups, with the numbers of books and papers contained in each large group shown in parenthses. 1. Studies which compared the Montessori method with other methods. (27) 2. Practical examples which developed and applied the Montessori method. (18) 3. Studies about the Montessori method for handicapped children. (12) 4. Philosophical and theoretical studies about the Montessori method. (8) 5. Scientific studies about the Montessori method. (2) The group of "Scientific studies about the Montessori method" had only two papers, the smallest in number of the five groups. The Montessori method was created scientifically by Maria Montessori at the beginning of this century. During the following years the educational and psychological sciences have developed gradually. I think that the Montessori method should be further studied scientifically from the modern educational and psychological points of view. Scientific studies will clarify new aspects of the Montessori method and add new elements to it. The Montessori method will develop and be applied to various fields.