Survey of Beliefs and Attitudes About Education
©1995 Edward G. Rozycki, Ed.D.
The questions below have intrigued thinkers throughout history. With each question is a list of answers that have been seriously offered at one time or another.
Which responses (there may be more than one) do you believe best answer the question? Please indicate your choices by checking or circling them. Or, if you feel that none of those given is quite what you believe, you may enter your own answer in the space provided.
RETURN to catalog
edited 4/14/12
___b. laws of nature
___c. art
___d. religion
___e. survival skills
___f. discipline
___g. learning how to learn.
___h.______________________
2. What are the ultimate goals of education?
___a. salvation
___b. a better society
___c. maximizing personal power
___d. self-expression
___e. achieving one's potential
___f. enlightenment
__g.__________________
b. second _______________
c. third ________________
d. fourth _______________
e. fifth _________________
___b. control of reinforcers
___c. justified, true belief
___d. apprehension of the real
___e. ability to solve problems
___f. group consensus
___g. a tradition of faith
___h.________________________
___b. misinformed action
___c. non-reinforced behavior
___d. an alternative mental processing
___e. a deviation from a norm
___f. an act of defiance
___g._____________________
6. How can we tell whether our goals have been achieved?
___a. by testing
___b. by intuition
___c. by the effort we have put into attaining them.
___d. by our lack of desire to continue effort.
___e. ._____________________
___a. they possess a soul
___b. they can conceptualize
___c. they use language.
___d. they can transcend causality
___e. they are active, physical organisms
___f. .they have free will
___g. .___________________
___b. all behavior is learned
___c. altruism is hereditary.
___d. neither heredity nor learning causes human acts
___e. intelligence cannot be enhanced by training.
___f.._____________________
9. What is learning?
___a. a change in behavior
___b. a conditioning phenomenon
___c. increase in the apperceptive mass
___d. reprogramming.
___e. a change in neural circuitry
___f. generating and selecting hypotheses
___g.______________________
10. How are skills and factual knowledge acquired?
___a. entirely through the senses
___b. by reflection
___c. by recall.
___d. by interaction in a problematic situation.
___e. by practice
___f. by reinforcement of appropriate responses.
___g. ______________________
11. What conditions promote learning?
___a. student interest
___b. student fear
___c. a warm class atmosphere.
___d. a strict teacher.
___e. different things depending on the individual.
___f.______________________
12. What conditions inhibit learning?
___a. student interest
___b. student fear
___c. a relaxed classroom.
___d. a strict classroom.
___e. different things depending on the individual.
___f._______________________
13. How is knowledge passed on?
___a. by instruction
___b. it isn't; it's brought out of memory
___c. by imitation
___d. by mental telepathy
___e. by heredity
___f. it is acquired by persons in need
___g_______________________
14. Who is to teach?
___a. trained, certified professionals
___b. whosoever knows how
___c. those who can't do
___d. no one teaches; willing people learn.
___e._____________________
15. What methods should be used?
___a. whatever works
___b. experimentation in a realistic situation
___c. lecture
___d. memorization
___e.no methods are effective
___f. independent study
___g. controlled practice
___h.______________________
___a. a crowd united for mutual benefit
___b. an organic unity
___c. oppressors oppressing the oppressed.
___d. a homeostatic mechanism
___e.people cooperating
___f. people who share values
___g.______________________
17. How does the individual relate to the group?
___a. the group is a collection of individuals
___b. individual identity derives from the group
___c. the individual has inalienable rights
___d. maximizing individual welfare also maximizes social welfare.
___e .groups are abstractions; only individuals exist.
___f. the person is a social idea
___g______________________
18. What institutions are involved in education?
___a. all of them
___b. none of them
___c. school, church and home
___d. not the school
___e.education can happen anywhere
___f. education may not happen anywhere
___g.______________________
19. Who is to be admitted to various types of education?
___a. everyone to the fullest extent of his or her potential
___b. only those intelligent enough to benefit
___c. anyone who can pay
___d. those whose success promotes the general welfare.
___e._____________________
20. Why do people disagree?
___a. some lack knowledge
___b. it is natural for different people to disagree
___c. they value different things
___d. some are perverse
___e.they have different histories of reinforcement
___f.__________________
21. How is consensus achieved?
___a. through coercion
___b. through rational understanding
___c. through persuasion.
___d. when people don't realize they may still disagree with one another
___e._____________________
22. Whose opinion or judgment takes precedence?
___a. the authority's
___b. the experienced person's
___c. the knower's
___d. the older person's
___e.the powerholder's
___f.______________________