COLOUR FOR BLACKBOARDS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 1, 24 September 1937, Page 7

COLOUR FOR BLACKBOARDS

Interesting Experiments

Many thousands of school blaclcboards in all' parts of Britain may have to be scrapped — if tests now being earried out by psychologists are successful. They are not satisfied with the blackboard as it is now. They think children could read more easily from a lighter coloured board, and are experimenting with boards varying in colours from buff to pale primrose. More tban 1000 tests, in all types of schools, are being made by Mr. W. D. Selmour on behalf of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology. They are part of a general inquiry into general school conditions. Among other things to be investigated will be heating, lighting, chairs and desks. . "We think that a lighter colour efd board is more psychologically stimulating for children, besides being easy to read and copy from," Mr. Selmour told Reynolds Ndws. "We have already found, in preliminary tests, that children were able to copy more from a primrose coloured board than from a standard blaclc one. Our test is roughly as follows: We stencil a passage in white on a blackboard, then do the same in black on a light-coloured board. If the average timo taken in copying the second passage is shorter, all other things being equal, we conclude that the li^ht board is more advantageous. Of course that is only a rough explanation. Actually our calculations are much more eomplieated, for we usq the statistical method. ' '