Dictionary of British Education
In the early days of industrial psychology it was observed in a study by Elton Mayo, of the Hawthorne works near Chicago, that when individuals are being observed, they tend to perform better.
This is important in educational studies because if a new teaching method or a new curriculum project is introduced into a classroom, and the pupils improve their performance, this may be caused not by the value of the new approach but simply because the pupils are receiving extra attention. The Hawthorne effect is sometimes extended to mean simply ‘the effect of the novelty of a new set of materials which eventually wears off’.
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