Are you thinking of the Hawthorne effect? Quoting from page 121 of David Moore's Concepts and Controversies, 4th edition:
"In the 1920s, the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company tried to discover by experiment what changes in working conditions would improve the productivity of their workers. They found that any change made while the workers knew that a study was going on increased productivity. More lighting helped, but so did less lighting. The fact that people change their behavior when they know they are being studied is now called the Hawthorne effect."
Jackie
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Name for temporary improvement effect? Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 10:57:17 -0400 From: "Robert J. MacG. Dawson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I seem to recall that the education literature and/or folklore states that introducing any novelty in teaching technique usually results in a temporary increase in grades and satisfaction, which then disappears again. Is there an accepted name for this?
-Robert Dawson . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
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