ABSTRACT
In recent years some of the ideas derived from the experimental study of the processes of learning have been transplanted from the psychological laboratory to the classroom. This new link between theory and practice has been made through the techniques of programming. Programmed instruction is a field in which the work of the psychologist and the teacher fuse. In the words of one American psychologist it is ‘….the first application of laboratory techniques utilized in the study of the learning process to the practical problems of education’. The laboratory techniques referred to are those exemplified by Skinner in his control of behaviour [10]. As we have seen above, Skinner, through the judicious use of reinforcement, was able to shape the behaviour of an organism ‘almost at will’. His laboratory animals learned most elaborate sequences of behaviour: his pigeons learned to play ping-pong while other pigeons have been trained to pick out faulty pills on a production line.
