Individualized German Instruction at the College Level—A Follow‐Up Report

Abstract

To verify and substantiate statistically the results obtained after the first year of operation of the individualized basic German course at Berkeley, a second‐year study was conducted. Better‐known pretests were employed; a greater number and variety of posttests were used and were administered in a more systematic manner. The second study also included a more differentiated and rigorous analysis of the data than did the first study. For levels 1 and 2 the performance of individualized instruction students was significantly better on ‐all written tests than that of basic course students using the same textbook; the number of observations for level 3 was too small for statistical purposes. The oral performance of individualized instruction students was found to be equal to that of students in the basic course. The total combined enrollment of the courses under discussion increased substantially because of the great increases in the number of individualized instruction students during the two years. These findings confirm those of the first study and demonstrate the basic soundness of individualized foreign language instruction.