AIMS.The main aim was to compare the achievement of pupils who have studied physical science by television with that of others using conventional methods. A secondary cancem was to obtain an objective measure of the attitude of pupils to being taught physical soience by the medium of television. THE SAMPLE. An incidental sample was taken from the first and second forms of a four-form entry secondary modem school in the City of Manchester. The groups were similar in size (thirty) and contained nearly equal numbers of boys and girls. The standard deviations of ability of the groups were similar and initial differences in ability between groups were held constant in the statistical analysis. THE METHOD.A .-Achievement.An initial measure of the general ability of the pupils was obtained by combining soores on a Moray House Verbal Reasoning test and Raven's Matrices (1938) test.(Called the X score.) A measure of the pupils' initial knowledge of the subject matter of the science lessons to be taken was obtained from an objective test of 100 items designed to cover the content of the course to be followed (Test No. 1).Four groups of pupils then studied the same subject matter by difierent methods for five weeks. One group was taught by using television lessons (from the B.B.C. series " Discovering Science ") integrated with laboratory lessons. A second group had conventional laboratory lessons, a third was taught by taking television lessons (repeat of the above B.B.C. lessons) in the classroom and a fourth had conventional classroom lessons based on a textbaok. A fifth group wits used as a control group to detect any incidental learning which might take place through other eduoational influences such as general television programmes viewed a t home. This group followed a series of biology lessons unrelated to the physical science lessons taken by the other groups.I t was found administratively impossible to employ different teachers or to interchange teachers in order t G nullify the teacher variable. The writer consequently arranged to take all groups and administer all tests personally. After the teaching period the 100 items test was completed by all pupils for a second time (Test No. 2). The mean change in score of each group was called the Y score.A product moment correlation coefficient indicated a definite relationship ( '4) between initial ability and achievement after the teaching period, i.e., between X and Y . AnElysis of covariance was, therefore, employed using X scores as the independent or predicting variable and Y scores as the dependent variable. The F test, on the variances obtained from the adjusted sums of squares on the Y scores, proved highly significant (P<.Ol). t tests were, therefcre, carried out on the adjusted Y means.From each of the four teaching groups it was found possible to select seven pupils of approximately similar ability to pupils in the rther groups. t tests were carried out on the mean changes in scores of these matched groups and comparisons were drawn with the results of the c...

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