An Experiment on the Cliche “Action Speak Louder than Words”

Introduction:

In this experiment the experimenters tried to determine if this clich is true, if people do actually learn better through observation than through words. They taught different children in different ways, some by action, and some by words, in order to determine how they learn better.

Hypothesis:

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I think that the tested children who are shown what to do will have a cleaner

room at the end of the experiment, proving that children who are taught through demonstration learn better than those who are just told what to do.

Null Hypothesis:

The children who are told what to do will learn better then those who are shown, disproving the clich.

III. Method:

Subjects:

Two kinder-garden classes (age group: 5 year old boys and girls) from each of ten different schools - 20 classes in total.

Procedure:

Each of the ten experimenters was assigned one of the ten schools. The experimenters went to one class and on five separate occasions explained exactly where the books go, where the paint goes, how to clean the paintbrushes, how to stack the blocks etc.

The experimenter then went into the second class and showed them the exact place of each toy, and showed them how to stack them, how to clean the paintbrushes etc., without saying anything in the process. Only giving them a brief introduction of what he is doing.

After the five sessions, another experimenter visited the classes. He was not told which class was the one who was told, and which class was shown. However, the experimenter was told exactly what they were told or shown to do in that particular school. As the classes were told to clean up the room the experimenter used direct observation to determine which class followed their instructions (cleaned up) better, and recorded it.

Design:

The experimental design included an independent variable, the telling or showing how to clean the room, and a dependent variable, how well the kids cleaned up on their own. Both groups were considered experimental groups because they both had different independent variables, therefore different results in their dependent variables.

IIII. Results

Each of the experimenters found that the children in the classes who were shown what to do cleaned up better than those who were just told. The children who were just told what to do did it sloppily and were more likely to forget where everything went.

Examining the experiment

Problems with experiment:

• The experimental group consisted of very few classes and the experimenters could not base the whole world's statistics on 20 classes.
• This experiment only proves that actions speak louder than words when teaching kindergarten children, because they were all the same age.
• Only one experimenter observed the children cleaning up and it was very objective.

Confounding variables:

• Some classes may consist of kids who are shown at home how to clean up, orwere shown beforehand by another person.

Ways to fix the experiment:

• The experimenters could have made a bigger experimental group by including more schools and more experimenters.
• Each of the experimenters could also have visited and observed all of the classes that they did not teach.
• The experimental group could have also included older kids.

Conclusion:

This experiment really did not prove anything for the population but it did prove that for young children it is better to show them what to do than tell them, because they, as children, will learn better from example.

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