Three studies were performed to investigate the ecacy of digital PowerPoint lecturing in undergraduate classrooms. In the ®rst study, students' opinion about PowerPoint lectures was surveyed after receiving all their lectures in one module in PowerPoint. Grades of one cohort were then compared with the grades of another taking the same test one year earlier. No signi®cant dierences were found. In another study, students received a mock test 1 week following: (1) an overhead lecture, (2) a PowerPoint lecture and (3) a PowerPoint lecture with lecture notes. There were no signi®cant dierences between the two PowerPoint lectures both of which resulted in higher grades than the overhead lecture. In the third study, two cohorts had two identical lectures, in a counterbalanced order, presented either with PowerPoint or by using overheads. The results revealed that the lecture diculty, but not the method of lecturing, contributed to the grade dierences on two mock tests. It is suggested that the ecacy of PowerPoint lecturing may be case speci®c rather than universal. 7

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Nigel Hastings looks at the question of motivation and some of the theories that enable us to understand and deal with underachievement. In particular he introduces the ‘Attunement Strategy’ developed in Holland and the training programme for teachers. The evidence is most encouraging and suggests another tool for improving classroom practice and delivery.

Recent years have seen an increase of interest in behaviour modification in education.This has been evident both through its greater use within special and ordinary schools and through the publication of a spate of books urging the use of such procedures by teachers. These developments have met with a variety of critical responses. Some of these have focused on practices being employed in schools while others have taken theoretical issues as their central concern. Two of the more considered of these critical responses by Clark (1979) and by Burwood & Brady (1984) have appeared in this journal. Both of them are highly critical of what they term "the theory of behaviour modification". This is a determinist cause and effect account of human behaviour of the sort which behaviourists like J. B. Watson offered. As a consequence of their concern about this deterministic outlook, which they take to be integral to behaviour modification, both sets of writers have reservations about the use of behaviour modification in education, with Clark going so far as to describe the whole business as having "nightmare implications" (p. 73).From its earliest days, behaviour modification has been associated in the minds of many, friend and foe alike, not only with the experimental analysis of behaviour but also with a deterministic account of human behaviour, and, by some foes, with the fictional societies of Brave New World and Clockwork Orange. But does behaviour modification necessarily entail a view of all behaviour as caused? Does behaviour modification require an amoral perspective on human affairs?In this article we intend to examine these and other issues raised by these two papers. We consider these issues to be important both in their own right and because they are frequently raised in discussions of behaviour modification. We will suggest that while the criticisms offered against the sorts of mechanistic behaviourism often held out as being "the theory of behaviour modification" are essentially sound, they are of no consequence for the practice of behaviour modification. Behaviour Modification and Behaviourist TheoryAny academic discipline needs explanatory theories which can unify current knowledge within the subject, provide insight into the basic mechanisms generating the observed phenomena and give direction to fresh research. In psychology, theories are directed towards explaining human behaviour and any general psychological theory must be able to account for any human behaviour. Now, in the last resort, behaviour modification is a thing, or a set of things, that people do: it is a sub-set of human-behaviour, just as is train driving, shopping or teaching. Each must be explicable by any theory which claims to explain human behaviour. Consequently, any theory which is represented as being able to explain human behaviour must be able to explain what 'behaviour modifiers' do and why this has whatever effects it does have on others. Explaining why behaviour modification procedures work, when they do, is therefore not the ...

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