As was implied in the research conducted by Chastain (1969) and discussed in the preceding section, the important question is not which method of teaching is better, but which method is better for which students. Education should concern itself with determining the most efficient fit between the teachinglearning situation and the learner. In line with this need, a major focus in recent classroom research has been on the interaction between the instructional program and learner characteristics. An aptitude-treatment interaction occurs when one type of student achieves more in one approach while another type does better in another approach. Obviously, the ideal situation would be to place students, by means of diagnostic tests, into programs that correspond most closely to their abilities, needs, and interests.
In addition to the several instances of aptitude-treatment interaction that have been mentioned previously in this chapter in relation to other topics, additional cases of interaction have been, and are being, found. Gage and Berliner (1975) refer to a comparison by McNeil in which boys learned better by machine than girls, but girls learned better in the regular classroom taught by a woman teacher. The authors also summarize results of an investigation of beginning reading instruction conducted by Stallings and Keepes that indicated that students with high auditory ability learn to read better using a linguistic method. Students low in auditory ability learned more in a whole-word method. 4 This study also revealed that students beginning with higher scores for vocabulary and concepts achieved more with a linguistic approach while students having lower scores on vocabulary and concepts did better with the whole-word method. Dowaliby and Schumer (1973) found that students high in anxiety did significantly better in teacher-centered classes while students low in anxiety did significantly better in student-centered discussion groups.
The results of this study suggested two types of students: (1) independent achievement motivation and (2) conforming achievement motivation. Each type of student preferred a teacher of her own type. Rhetts (1974) obtained results indicating that impulsive learners respond more quickly and make fewer errors on easy tasks while reflective learners respond more slowly but make fewer errors on difficult tasks. Kirkpatrick (1974) reported that introverted students tend to do better in IPI and that extroverted students tend to do better in lecture-discussion classes. 5
Wood and McCurdy (1974) investigated the achievement of students with varying degrees of "skills of self-direction" as they participated in a science
program characterized by continuous progress and self-pacing through eighty LAPs containing behavioral objectives. The results of the study indicated that success in such a program depends upon the ability of the students to direct their own learning, i.e., to operate independently of the teacher, to use class time effectively, to plan a work schedule, to use study skills, to use the curriculum materials, and to work up to the level of their abilities. Ramey and Piper (1974) studied the effect of open and traditional classrooms on student creativity. They mention two other studies, one by Haddon and Lytton and one by Stuckey and Langevin, which concluded that students scored higher on creativity scales after having studied in a traditional classroom or in informal discussion situations than in an open classroom. In their own study, students in an open classroom situation scored higher on all measures of figural creativity, while students in a traditional classroom did better on all measures of verbal creativity. Allen et al. (1974) reported that students with an external locus of control contracted for and received lower grades, began their work more slowly, were more anxious, and performed less well on written exams than their internal locus of control classmates.
Aptitude-treatment interactions have been obtained in studies comparing the audio-lingual and cognitive methods in second-language education. Studies by Chastain (1969), Chastain and Woerdehoff (1968), Kelly (1965), Mueller (1971a), and Mueller (1971b) have indicated that high-aptitude students have higher achievement scores in a cognitively based instructional system while low-aptitude students have higher achievement in a audio- lingual system. Such results lend strong support to the need to provide different types of learning material and learning situations for different types of learners.