During the 1950s, CAI was first used in education, and training, with early work, was done by IBM. The mediation of instruction entered the computer age in the 1960s when Patrick Suppes and Richard Atkinson conducted their initial investigations into CAI in mathematics and reading. Developed through a systematic analysis of curriculum, Suppes’ (1979) CAI provided learner feedback, branching, and response tracking. CAI grew rapidly in the 1960s, when federal funding for research and development in education and industrial laboratories was implemented.
Published in Chapter:
Behaviorism and Developments in Instructional Design and Technology
Irene Chen (University of Houston Downtown, USA)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 20
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-198-8.ch023
Abstract
The theory of behaviorism concentrates on the study of overt behaviors that can be observed and measured (Good & Brophy, 1990). In general, the behavior theorists view the mind as a “black box” in the sense that response to stimulus can be observed quantitatively, ignoring the possibility of thought processes occurring in the mind. Behaviorists believe that learning takes place as the result of a response that follows on a specific stimulus. By repeating the S-R (stimulus-response) cycle, the organism (may it be an animal or human) is conditioned into repeating the response whenever the same stimulus is present. The behavioral emphasis on breaking down complex tasks, such as learning to read, into subskills that are taught separately, has a powerful influence on instructional design. Behaviors can be modified, and learning is measured by observable change in behavior. The behavior theorists emphasize the need of objectivity, which leads to great accentuation of statistical and mathematical analysis.