New York State Education Department Division of Research Rural Schools Experiment Audio Recordings

In 1939, the New York State Education Department undertook a project to introduce the use of audio recordings to small, rural schools in New York State. The project was geared towards one and two room schoolhouses where at least two different grade levels were taught in the same room.

In 1939, the Division of Research at the New York State Education Department, via grant funding from the Committee for Scientific Aids for Learning, created a series of phonograph recordings on topics informed by the superintendents and teachers in small, rural school districts, implemented their use in classrooms, evaluated their effectiveness through site visits and survey instruments, and then published the results of the project. The stated goals of the "experiment" as it was referred to by the project commit were twofold: to create "a rich source of reference materials for use by others in producing phonographic records as an aide to the enrichment of instruction."

This series consists of phonograph records and accompanying documentation created by the Education Department for use as an education enrichment device in small, rural schools.

The records consists of 38 disks plus two transcription disks. The recordings are broken up into three groups– Environment, English, and Regional Studies relating to specific storylines or topics such as bird calls or etiquette. The vast majority of the records relate to nature or conservation related topics, which is partially reflective of the rural locations that these educational recordings were likely to be employed in. Exact content of the two extra transcription disks is unknown.

The New York State Library has a five volume copy of the primary project documentation in its holdings that summarizes the project, provides detailed tabulations of the evaluation data, offers recommendations for future use, and provides original manuscript materials relating to the recording development. All of the reports and publications relating to the project were written by Dr. Effie Geneva Bathurst, who was the project administrator.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of the material.