ABSTRACT
When instructional theory was born, about 1960, a behavioral orientation dominated learning theory and instructional practice. B. F. Skinner’s programmed instruction and teaching machines were highly popular. George L. Gropper’s theory of instruction is a creative synthesis of the vast majority of the knowledge about instruction that arose out of the behavioral tradition. Gropper’s theory prescribes a number of the same strategy components as other instructional theories, such as practice, examples, cues for learning guidance, and Gagné’s hierarchical sequence. Any instructional theory, behavioral or nonbehavioral, needs to identify conditions and treatments. It also needs to match treatments with conditions in systematic fashion. Treatments must be found that can match the distinctive requirements posed by: the types of objectives that need to be learned; and the applicable mix of component skills and of stimulus/response characteristics that may make learning those objectives difficult.
