Efficiency. The guiding force that drives progress, success, and growth. The discovery and development of methods to increase efficiency impacted the world in ways never imaginable. The concept of efficiency infiltrates all sectors of life—the fast food industry, manufacturing, communication, design, and education, to name a few. I’m particularly interested in its impact on education and learning.
I consider efficiency to be the process of producing desired effects with certain factors taken into consideration. The concept of efficiency became popular during the Industrial Revolution, as companies and factories were interested in increasing output and income, while decreasing expenses. At the heart of the concept of efficiency lies its expert—Frederick Taylor. Frederick Taylor was the founder of “scientific management,” the process of identifying the “’one best way’ to do a job” (Rees, 2001, p. 1). Taylor began implementing scientific management into factories and companies, but later his methods were integrated into many sectors of education. Scientific management has affected everything from “the use of buildings and classroom space… to standardiz[ing] the work of janitors” (p. 2).
One of the most influential leaders to integrate the concept of scientific management into the classroom was Leonard Ayres. He was one of the “first educators to picture the school as a factory and to apply the business and industrial values in a systematic way” (Callahan, 1964, p. 16). Leonard Ayre’s “Laggards in our Schools” portrayed several misconstrued messages to the public of the era. By collecting reports from schools and government agencies, Ayres concluded that schools were filled with “retarded children,” most of which dropped out of school by eighth grade. By “retarded children” Ayres meant children that were over-aged for their grade. However, Ayre’s research failed to take into account social, economic, and educational reasons when constructing that definition. He didn’t account for schools in low-income neighborhoods, nor schools with high enrollment. He didn’t consider the impact of immigrants and non-English speaking student had on the population. However, despite its shortcomings, Ayre’s work began a revolution that changed education and learning. He pointed out to the public the excess dollars schools were spending in repetitively educating the same population. He made the public aware of the inefficiency of the school systems in teaching children. And he made the public more conscious of the cost of education, emphasizing the value of receiving the proper education in a cost effective manner.
I’m most interested in how this concept of “efficiency” affects learning in today’s society— specifically in online and distance education—where efficiency lies at the core. This type of learning was developed to meet a specific need of the public. How can I receive an education at a distance without compromising the quality of my education? How can I develop instruction that reaches a broader audience than a traditional face-to-face classroom? In addition, efficiency underlies the use of technologies and instructional methods that are used in online and distance education. How can I develop exams that require less time on my end to grade? How can I develop materials that will get to students faster? What medium will enable me to deliver my content without compromising the quality of my work?
Often, the goal of developing an online course is to cater to one of these efficiency-related needs—to reach a larger audience, to make teaching easier on the instructor, to make learning easier on the learner. However, at what cost? We must consider how this concept of efficiency influences our values of what is good, effective, and worthwhile. Is it okay to sacrifice quality of video content to distribute the footage at a faster pace? Is it okay to develop automated multiple-choice tests to cater to the instructor’s lack of time commitment to the course?
I understand this post is filled with hypotheticals and questions that I can’t answer, but I’m excited because these questions have triggered an interest for me to explore what my role as an instructional designer truly means to the field. I feel that the answer to many of these questions lies in the process of instructional design—an emphasis on learner and instructor needs analysis, combined with formative and summative evaluation, could provide me with answers to these questions.
References
Callahan, R. (1964). Education and the Cult of Efficiency. University of Chicago Press.
Rees, J. (2001). Frederick Taylor in the classroom: Standardizing testing and scientific management. Radical Pedagogy. ICAAP.