Teaching Introductory Sociology by Film

Abstract

This study reports the construction and the evaluation of a course in which introductory sociology is presented by film. The project is more an unabashed exploration into the art of teaching than a probe into the science of learning. In the 1950's, the examination of audio-visual use in the classroom emphasized the comparative evaluation of different media techniques (Allen, 1971). By the 1970s, this research has noted that, ultimately, it is not a question of whether or not the use of films or another medium is as effective as some other mode of instruction but rather that a given medium is responded to diffe-ently by different people with different attributes in different situations (Lumsdaine, 1963, Gagne, 1967). Thus, we have found that people respond differently to stimuli in terms of such variables as differing mental abilities