Programmed texts or teaching machines? Available to Purchase

Readers of this journal will know that in programmed learning we are dealing with control and communication systems. In applying PL (or PI = Programmed Instruction as it is more often called) to systems of industrial training the consultant will start from the assumption that trainees are expected to acquire a skill which is precisely definable to an agreed standard: that, therefore, something measurable has to be learned: and that the optimum method of causing such learning to take place will be chosen — ie taking into account variables such as performance standards, training time, costs, acceptability, and so on. We thus begin always with the end product — performance to be achieved — defining this objective and working backwards from there to the development of a learning sequence called a ‘programme’ which is itself the cause of the required learning taking place. The distinguishing feature of this process is that for the first time in the history of industrial training we can control the learning of skills over several parameters simultaneously, and thus ensure that every time the programme is applied — ie trainees are put through the system — the same skills will be acquired to the same standards in approximately the same time. It thus becomes possible to predict fairly precisely when trainees will reach the agreed standard and also to ensure that each has received a completely standardized training.