Bringing radical behaviorism to revolutionary Brazil and back: Fred Keller's Personalized System of Instruction and Cold War engineering education

Abstract

This article traces the shifting epistemic commitments of Fred S. Keller and his behaviorist colleagues during their application of Skinnerian radical behaviorism to higher education pedagogy. Building on prior work by Alexandra Rutherford and her focus on the successive adaptation of Skinnerian behaviorism during its successive applications, this study utilizes sociologist of science Karin Knorr Cetina's concept of epistemic cultures to more precisely trace the changes in the epistemic commitments of a group of radical behaviorists as they shifted their focus to applied behavioral analysis. The story revolves around a self-paced system of instruction known as the Personalized System of Instruction, or PSI, which utilized behaviorist principles to accelerate learning within the classroom. Unlike Skinner's entry into education, and his focus on educational technologies, Keller developed a mastery-based approach to instruction that utilized generalized reinforcers to cultivate higher-order learning behaviors. As it happens, the story also unfolds across a rather fantastic political terrain: PSI originated in the context of Brazilian revolutionary history, but circulated widely in the U.S. amidst Cold War concerns about an engineering manpower(sic) crisis. This study also presents us with an opportunity to test Knorr Cetina's conjecture about the possible use of a focus on epistemic cultures in addressing a classic problem in the sociology of science, namely unpacking the relationship between knowledge and its social context. Ultimately, however, this study complements another historical case study in applied behavioral analysis, where a difference in outcome helps to lay out the range of possible shifts in the epistemic commitments of radical behaviorists who entered different domains of application. The case study also has some practical implications for those creating distance learning environments today, which are briefly explored in the conclusion.

ONCOLL: A quasi-experimental study on the effect of a web-based platform on teaching collocations

“…Moreover, the program did not show correct answers to the two exercises after each set of collocations (10 nouns and their collocations), compelling the participants to retake the tests until they got a compulsory score of 100. ONCOLL includes features such as answering questions at one's own pace and checking answers which are in fact in line with Keller's Personalized System of Instruction (Akera, 2017) and Skinner's Programmed Instruction (Singh, 2017). These features may have contributed to the significant posttest score gains on the part of the participants in the experimental group.…”

Evaluation of a MOOC developed from educational principles based on behavioral theory

“…Specifically in the field of education, two of the oldest and most well-known contributions of behaviorism theory are programmed instruction (Skinner, 1986) and the Personalized System of Instruction or Keller Plan (Keller & Sherman, 1974). From the 1980s onwards, one of the creators of the Keller Plan (Akera, 2017), professor Carolina Martuscelli Bori, developed a behaviorist contribution applied to education as a critique of what behaviorists had been developing as programmed teaching (Matos, 1998;Nale, 1998). This contribution has been designated as "Programming of Teaching", an expression that refers to the teacher's decision-making process to plan, carry out and evaluate the teaching-learning processes based on concepts, principles and procedures derived from a contemporary understanding of behavioral theory (Kienen et al, 2013;Kubo & Botomé, 2001).…”

CAPSI: Caracterização de uma versão on-line do Sistema Personalizado de Ensino

“…As principais contribuições de Skinner à Educação estão em sua teoria geral sobre aprendizagem e na técnica de instrução programada (Akera, 2017). Foram Fred Simmons Keller, John Gilmour Sherman, Carolina Martuscelli Bori e Rodolpho Azzi, ao planejar um projeto de curso de graduação com base nas descobertas sobre aprendizagem realizadas nos laboratórios de Análise Experimental do Comportamento até a década de 1950, quem desenvolveram uma contribuição mais impactante aos contextos educacionais.…”

“…Mais do que uma técnica para elaborar materiais de ensino, o PSI é uma tecnologia que abrange toda a sistemática de organização de um ambiente social focado na interação entre alunos, monitores, professores, atividades e materiais de ensino, orientada ao ensino (Akera, 2017). Algumas de suas características centrais são: (1) divisão do curso em pequenas unidades; (2) especificação de objetivos comportamentais para cada unidade; (3) ênfase na palavra escrita; (4) exigência de proficiência em cada unidade; (5) ritmo próprio do aluno; (6) uso de instrutores e monitores; (7) alta quantidade de feedbacks informativos ao desempenho do aluno; e (8) uso de aulas expositivas apenas com fins motivacionais, não para prover informações aos alunos (Svenningsen et al, 2018;Foss et al, 2014;Keller, 1968).…”