ABSTRACT
In the work of psychologists, the concepts of aptitude, learning, and instruction have been kept at a distance from one another. Attempts at integrating studies of aptitude and learning theory have had to overcome the long-standing division between the two, orginating in the different approaches taken by 19th century British and continental psychologists. The methodology employed by Hunt and his associates essentially involves correlating aptitude test scores with performance on tasks used in the study of memory and cognition. Snow refers to aptitude-aptitude relationships and to hierarchical theories of aptitude that have resulted from the study of patterns of test intercorrelations through factor analysis and multidimensional scaling. Various psychological theories have suggested, directly or indirectly, how conditions might be implemented to foster the transition of states of performance to higher stages of competence. The development of adaptive instructional systems requires movement away from fixed-track programs like Model 1 toward the more flexible programs outlined in the other models.
