The Carroll Model

The Model of School Learning, first published 25 years ago, has taken its place as a useful guide in research on teaching and learning in schools. The model accounts for variations in school learning with five classes of variables, three, of which can be expressed in terms of time, the other two in terms of achievement. Most aspects of the model have been confirmed, although details remain to be filled out by further research. Ways that the model might be used to address current problems in education are considered. The model's emphasis on aptitude as a determinant of time needed for learning suggests that increased efforts be placed on predicting student potentialities and designing instruction appropriate to those potentialities, if ideals of equal opportunity to learn are to be achieved within a diversity of educational objectives.