Relative effectiveness and efficiency of group vs. individual training of severely retarded persons.
Two groups of severely retarded individuals were trained on a work-recognition task: One group was trained individually, i.e., in one-to-one training sessions; the four members of the other group were taught simultaneously by one teacher. The group-teaching strategy resulted in rates of acquisition that were similar to those found with individual instruction. Further, group training proved to be far more efficient in terms of teacher time; i.e., subjects trained as a group acquired significantly more skills in less teacher time than did individually trained subjects. The results indicate that group training is a viable and, at least in some situations, a preferable method for teaching severely retarded persons.
D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D004495:Education of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities; D005260:Female; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors