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Classic Writings on Instructional Technology

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The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching

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Page 199


The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching


B. F. Skinner


In this article, the author discusses some recent advances made in the psychology of learning, and their implications for classroom teaching. Dr. Skinner's experimental work has


been concerned with an analysis of the effects of reinforcement in learning, and the designing of techniques by which reinforcement can be manipulated with considerable precision.


He points out that perhaps the most serious criticism of the current classroom is the relative infrequency of reinforcement, and suggests how the results of certain scientific research


in the field of learning can be brought to bear upon practical problems in education.


In order to take advantage of recent advances in the study of learning, the teacher must have the help of mechanical devices. In presenting the advantages to be gained from


instrumental help in teaching, Dr. Skinner also deals with objections which may be raised to the use of such mechanical aids in instruction.


Some promising advances have recently been made in the field of learning. Special techniques have been designed to arrange what are called "contingencies of


reinforcement"
—
the relations which prevail between behavior on the one hand and the consequences of that behavior on the other
—
with the result that a much more


effective control of behavior has been achieved. It has long been argued that an organism learns mainly by producing changes in its environment, but it is only recently


that these changes have been carefully manipulated. In traditional devices for the study of learning
—
in the serial maze, for example, or in the T
 
maze, the problem box,


or the familiar discrimination apparatus
—
the effects produced by the organism's behavior are left to many fluctuating circumstances. There is many a slip between the


turn
 
to
 
the
 
right and the food
 
cup at the end of the alley. It is not surprising that techniques of this sort have yielded only very rough data from which the uniformi

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