A National Experiment in Curriculum Evaluation

Although the need for true experiments on broadly defined populations has long been recognized, there are very few local experiments and no national experiments in curriculum research. For example, among 46 government-sponsored course development projects in science and mathematics, a few relied on teacher reports and classroom visits for evaluation, but only four used true experiments in their evaluation strategies (Welch, 1969). The purpose of the present paper is to report the feasibility of a national educational experiment and to present the summative findings regarding Project Physics, a physics course for high school students.