Eight year Study, The

The Eight Year Study (1930–1942) sought to articulate the relationship between high school and college curricula and to reconceive the purposes of secondary school education. Sponsored by the Progressive Education Association (PEA) [Page 324]and funded by the General Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, this national project, also known as the Thirty School Study, consisted of three PEA commissions and full-time staffs who worked directly with the faculty of 42 high schools and 26 junior high school programs. Through “exploration and experimentation,” what became a motto for the study, the Commission on the Relation of School and College (formed in 1930 and chaired by Wilford Aikin) addressed how the high school could serve youth more effectively. The Commission on Secondary School Curriculum (chaired by V. T. Thayer and formed in 1932) designed curriculum materials in the areas of general education: science, mathematics, social studies, arts, and language and recognizing that further study of youth needed to be undertaken, established the Study of Adolescence project, coordinated by Caroline Zachry. The Commission on Human Relations (formed in 1935 and chaired by Alice Keliher) prepared social science–related curriculum materials, incorporating the then innovative use of motion pictures, and examined human problems faced by youth. The commissions' research, publications, and implemented programs conceived and transformed educational practices in the fields of curriculum studies, instruction, teacher education, educational research, and evaluation.

The Eight Year Study offered participating schools the opportunity to redesign their general education curricula from a separate subjects–discipline configuration to an integrated core curriculum (typically incorporating what was called a fused or broad problems core). New curricular materials were required for these programs, and commission staff worked with teachers during 6-week summer workshops to develop resource units, a type of curricular material that offered great flexibility for use in the classroom. Participating school faculty at the more experimental schools practiced teacher–pupil planning (also called cooperative learning) where students and teachers were developing resource units and acquiring materials from resources in the community. The core curricula, resource units, and teacher–pupil planning conceived learning as a series of experiences, balancing student interests with societal and educational needs. The Eight Year Study schools participated in an extensive student testing and assessment program with a battery of sophisticated tests and inventories assessing student knowledge, skills, beliefs, and values.

One of the most overlooked aspects of the Eight Year Study was its work to use and popularize psychoanalytical discourse at the secondary school level. Caroline Zachry of the Thayer Commission's Study of Adolescence helped to introduce the use of psychoanalysis as a form of professional development and as a method for teachers to develop insights and new sensitivities toward students. Thayer and Keliher Commission staff included Peter Blos, Erik Homburger (Erikson), and Walter Langer, all of whom worked with Sigmund Freud in Vienna and prepared project reports and materials merging the use of depth psychology with cumulative student records. In what became known as the Zachry Seminar, Eight Year Study staff and teachers would present student cases and analyze motives as a way for participants to reconsider their fundamental educational beliefs.

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