FAKING A DISSERTATION - COLLINGS,ELLSWORTH, KILPATRICK,WILLIAM,H., AND THE PROJECT CURRICULUM

In An Experiment with a Project Curriculum (1923) Ellsworth Collings r eports on an experiment he directed as county superintendent from 1917 to 1921 at a rural school in McDonald County, Missouri, where the chi ldren themselves - not the teacher or the curriculum - determined the projects and topics they would study. Collings claims that the finding s of his dissertation strengthened the case for the 'project method' a s popularized by his doctoral adviser, William H. Kilpatrick, since th e students at the 'experimental school' attained higher scores on stan dardized tests in writing, reading and arithmetic as well as in social skills, habits and attitudes than the students at the two 'control sc hools'. Collings's book is a classic of progressive education, and his story of how 10 students were successful in combating an outbreak of typhoid fever in their community is well known among historians and ed ucators el en today. A re-examination of the dissertation-in particula r of the so-called 'typhoid project' - reveals, however, that the expe riment never took place as described and that Collings reconstructed h is data substantially in order to conform to Kilpatrick's frame of ref erence and to present convincing data on the possibility and superiori ty of child-centred education.