Teaching Machines

From the experimental study of learning come deviceswhich arrange optimal conditions for self-instruction.

There are more people in the worldthan ever before, and a far greater partof them want an education. The demandcannot be met simply by building moreschools and training more teachers. Edu-cation must become more efficient. Tothis end curricula must be revised andsimplified, and textbooks and classroomtechniques improved. In any other

field

ademand for increased production wouldhave led at once to the invention of la-bor-saving capital equipment. Educationhas reached this stage very late, possiblythrough a misconception of its task.Thanks to the advent of television, how-ever, the so-called audio-visual aids arebeing reexamined. Film projectors, tele-vision sets, phonographs, and tape

rc-

corders are finding their way into Amer-ican schools and colleges.Audio-visual aids supplement and mayeven supplant lectures, demonstrations,and textbooks. In doing so they serveone function of the teacher:

thry

pm-

sent material to the student and, whensuccessful, make it so clear and interest-ing that the student learns. There is an-other function to which they contributelittle or nothing. It is

best

seen

in theproductive interchange between

teachrr

and student in the small classroom ortutorial situation. Much of that inter-change has already been sacrificed inAmerican education in order to teachlarge numbers of students. There is a

teal

danger that

will

wholly

ob-

Trured

USC

rquipmcnt

dkwrd

sim-

B. F. Skinnerply to

PreJenr

material becomesspread. The student is becoming

wide-

and more a mere passive receiver of in-struction.Pressey’s Teaching MachinesThere is another kind of capital equip-ment which will encourage the studentto take an active role in the instructionalprocess. The possibility was recognizedin the

192O’s,

when Sidney L. Presseydesigned several machines for the auto-matic testing of intelligence and infor-mation. A recent model of one of theseis shown in Fig. 1. In using the devicethe student refers to a numbered item ina multiple-choice test. He presses thebutton corresponding to his first choiceof answer. If he is right, the devicemoves on to the next item; if he is wrong,the error is tallied, and he must continueto make choices until he is right

(2).

Such machines, Pressey pointed out

(Z),

could not only test and score, they could

feat/r.

When an examination is correctedand returned after a delay of manyhours or days, the student’s behavior isnot appreciably modified. The immedi-ate report supplied by a self-scoring de-vice, however, can have an importantinstructional effect. Pressey also pointedout that such machines would increaseefficiency in another way. Even in a smallclassroom the teacher

usuahy

knows that

is moving too slowly for some studentsand too fast for

othrrs.

Those who

cnuld

faster

are penalized, and those whoshould go slower are poorly taught andunnecessarily punished by criticism andfailure. Machine instruction would per-mit each student to proceed at his ownrate.The “industrial revolution in educa-

tion”

which Pressey envisioned

stub-

bornly refused to come about. In

1932

he expressed his disappointment(3)“The problems of invention are

rela-

tively simple,” he wrote. “With alittlemoney and engineering resource, agreatdeal

could

easily be done. The

writer

has found from bitter experience thatone person alone can accomplish rela-tively little and he is regretfully dropping further work on these problems.

But

he hopes that enough may havebeen done to stimulate other workers,that this fascinating field may be devel-oped.”Pressey’s machines succumbed in partto cultural inertia; the world of educa-tion was not ready for them. But theyalso had limitations which probably con-tributed to their failure. Pressey wasworking against a background of psycho-logical theory which had not come togrips with the learning process. Thestudy of human learning was dominatedby the “memory drum” and similar de-vices originally designed to study forget-ting. Rate of learning was observed, butlittle was done to change it. Why thesubject of such an experiment botheredto learn at all was of little interest. “Fre-quency” and

“recency”

theories of learn-

ing, and principles of

‘Cmassed

and spaced

practice,”concerned the conditions un-der which responses were remembered.

Pressey’s

machineswere

designed

against this theoretical background.

.4s

versions of the memory drum, they wereprimarily testing devices. They were tobe used after some amount of learninghad already taken place elsewhere. Byconfirming correct responses and byweakening responses which should nothave been acquired, a self-testing ma-chine does, indeed, teach; but it is notdesigned primarily for that purpose.Nevertheless, Pressey seems to have

bern

the

lirst

to emphasize the importance

immediate feedback in

eduration

and topropose a system in which each student

could move at his own pace. He saw theneed for capital

cquipmcnt

in realizing

these

objectives. Above

all

conceived

of a machine which (in contrast with theaudio-visual aids which were beginningto be developed) permitted the studentto play an active role.

Another Kind of Machine

The learning process is now much bet-ter understood. Much of what we knowhas come from studying the behavior of lower organisms, but the results holdsurprisingly

we11

for human subjects.The emphasis in this research has notbeen on proving or disproving theoriesbut on discovering and controlling thevariables of which learning is a function.This practical orientation has paid off,for a surprising degree of control hasbeen achieved. By arranging appropriate“contingencies of reinforcement,” specificforms of behavior can be set up andbrought under the control of specificclasses of stimuli. The resulting behaviorcan be maintained in

stre.agth

for longperiods of time. A technology based onthis work has already been put to use inneurology, pharmacology, nutrition, psy-chophysics, psychiatry, and elsewhere(4).The analysis is also relevant to edu-cation. A student

“taught” in the sensethat he is induced to engage in newforms of behavior and in specific formsupon specific occasions. It is not merelya matter of teaching him

zo!zar

to do:we are as much concerned with the prob-ability that appropriate behavior will, in-

deed,

:ippcar

the

proper

time-anissue which

\vould

classed

tradition-ally under motivation. In education thebehavior to be shaped and maintainedis usually verbal, and it is to be broughtIf our current knowledge of the ac-quisition and maintenance of verbal be-under the control of both verbal andhavior is to be applied to education,nonverbal stimuli. Fortunately,

the

spe-some sort of teaching machine is needed.Contingencies of reinforcement whichchange the behavior of lower organismscial problems raised by verbal behavioroften cannot be arranged by hand; ratherelaborate apparatus is needed. The hu-can be submitted to a similar analysisman organism requires even more subtleinstrumentation. An appropriate teach-(5).ing machine will have several importantfeatures. The student must compose hisresponse rather than select it from a setof alternatives, as in a multiple-choiceself-rater. One reason for this is that wewant him to recall rather than recognize-to make a response as well as see thatit is right. Another reason is that effec-tive multiple-choice material must con-tain plausible wrong responses, whichare out of place in the delicate process

“shaping”behavior because theystrengthen unwanted forms. Although itis much easier to build a machine toscore multiple-choice answers than toevaluate a composed response, the tech-nical advantage is outweighed by theseand other considerations.A second requirement of a minimalteaching machine also distinguishes itfrom

cariier

versions. In acquiring com-plex behavior the student must passthrough a carefully designed sequenceof steps,

often

of considerable length.Each step must be so small that it canSeveral machines with the requiredcharacteristics have been built andalways be taken, yet in taking it the stu-tested. Sets of separate presentations or“frames” of visual material are storedon disks, cards, or tapes. One frame isdent moves somewhat closer to fullypresented at a time, adjacent frames be-ing out of sight. In one type of machinecompetent

behavior.

The machine mustthe student composes a response by mov-ing printed figures or letters (6). His set-make sure that

these

steps are taken inting is compared by the machine with aa carefully prescribed order.coded response. If the

t\vo

correspond,the machine automatically presents thenext frame. If they do not, the response is

cleared,

and another must be composed.The student cannot proceed to a secondstep until the first has been taken. Amachine of this kind is being tested inteaching spelling, arithmetic, and othersubjects in the lower grades.For more advanced students-from junior high school, say, through college-a machine which senses an arrange-ment of letters or figures is unnecessarilyrigid in specifying form of response.Fortunately, such students may be askedto compare their responses with printedmaterial revealed by the machine.

themachine shown in Fig. 2, material isprinted in 30 radial frames on a

12-inch

disk. The student inserts the disk andcloses the machine. He cannot proceeduntil the machine has been locked, and,once he has begun, the machine cannotbe unlocked. All but a corner of oneframe is visible through a window. Thestudent writes his response on a paperstrip exposed through a second open-ing. By lifting a lever on the front of themachine, he moves what he has writtenunder a transparent cover and uncoversthe correct response in the remainingcorner of the frame. If the two responsescorrespond, he moves the lever horizon-tally. This movement punches a hole inthe paper opposite his response, record-ing the fact that he

called

it correct,and alters

the

machine so that the

framr

will not appear again when the studentworks around the disk a second time.Whether the response was correct or not,a second frame appears when the leveris returned to its starting position. Thestudent proceeds in this way until hehas responded to a11 frames. He then

works around the disk a

second

time,

but only those

frames

appear to whichhe has not correctly responded.

When

the disk revolves without stopping, theassignment is finished. (The student isasked to repeat each frame until a cor-rect

response

is made to allow for thefact that, in telling him that a responseis wrong, such a machine tells him whatis right.)The machine itself, of course, does notteach. It simply brings the student intocontact with the person who composedthe material it presents. It is a labor-saving device because it can bring oneprogrammer into contact with an in-definite number of

students.

This maysuggest mass production, but the effectupon each student is surprisingly likethat of a private tutor. The comparisonholds in several respects. (i) There is aconstant interchange between programand student. Unlike lectures, textbooks,and the

usua1

audio-visual aids, the ma-chine induces sustained activity. Thestudent is always alert and busy. (ii)Like a good tutor, the machine insiststhat a given point be thoroughly under-stood, either frame by frame or set byset, before the student moves on. Lec-tures, textbooks, and their

mcchanizcd

equivalents, on the other hand, proceedwithout making sure that the studentunderstands and easily leave him behind.(iii) Like a good tutor the machine pre-sents just that material for which thestudent is ready. It asks him to take onlythat step which he is at the

moment

bestequipped and most likely to take. (iv)Like a

skiilful

tutor the machine helpsthe student to come up with the rightanswer. It does this in part through theorderly construction of the program andin part with techniques of hinting,prompting, suggesting, and so on, de-rived from an analysis of verbal be-havior (5). (v) Lastly, of course, themachine, like the private tutor, rein-forces the student for every correct re-

sponse,

using this immediate feedback not only to shape his behavior most effi-ciently but to maintain it in strength ina manner which the

layman

would de-scribe as “holding the student’s interest.”Programming MaterialThe success of such a machine de-pends on the material used in it. Thetask of programming a given. subject isat first sight rather formidable. Manyhelpful techniques can be derived froma general analysis of the relevant be-havioral

processes,

verbal and nonverbal.Fig.

Student

war!;

on a teaching machine. One frame of material is partly visible inthe left-hand window. The student writes his response on a strip of paper exposed at theright. He then lifts a lever with his left hand, advancing his written response under atransparent cover and uncovering the correct response in the upper corner of the frame.If he is right, he

moves

the lever to the right, punching a hole alongside the response hehas called right

and

alterifig

the machine so

ihat

that frame will not appear again whenhe

goes

through

the

series

a second time:

A new

frame appears when the lever is returnedto its starting position.

Specific forms of

behavior

are to beevoked and, through differential rein-forcement, brought under the control of specific stimuli.This is not the place for a systematicreview of available techniques, or of thekind of research which may be expectedto discover others. However, the ma-chines

themselves

cannot be adequatelydescribed without giving a few examplesof programs. We may begin with a setof frames (see Table 1) designed toteach a third- or fourth-grade pupil tospell the word

munu@cture.

The sixframes are presented in the order shown,and the pupil moves sliders to exposeletters in the open squares.The word to be learned appears

bold face in frame 1, with an exampleand a simple definition. The pupil’s firsttask is simply to copy it. When he doesso correctly, frame

appears. He mustnow copy selectively: he must identify“fact” as

the

common part of

‘Cmanu-

facture”

and “factory.” This helps himto spell the word and also to acquire aseparable “atomic” verbal operant (5).In frame 3 another root must be copiedselectively from “manual.” In frame 4the pupil must for the first time insertletters without copymg. Since he is askedto insert the same letter in two places, awrong response will be doubly

conspicu

ous,

and the chance of failure is therebyminimized. The same principle governsframe 5. In frame 6 the pupil spells theword to complete the sentence used asan example in frame 1. Even a poor stu-dent is likely to do this correctly becausehe has just composed or completed theword five times, has made two impor-tant root-responses, and has learned thattwo letters occur in the word twice. Hehas probably learned to spell

thesword

without having made a mistake.Teaching spelling is mainly a processof shaping complex forms of behavior.In other subjects-for example, arith-metic-responses must be brought underthe control of appropriate stimuli. Un-fortunately the material which has

been

prrpared

for teaching

arithmetic

(7)