Developing Programmed Learning Material for Teaching Science of CBSE Class IX

We will begin by discussing the early history of programmed learning and showing how the interpretation of the term has evolved over the years. The origin of programmed learning had its roots in behavioural psychology- the new ‘scientific’ school of psychology that was pioneered by the American psychologist B F Skinner during the 1950’s. Behavioural psychology was based on what is generally referred to as the stimulus response (S-R) model of behaviour. One important feature of the original stimulus-response model of learning was the concept of successive reinforcement. Another feature is that a desired S-R bond would be firmly established if the learner was supplied with immediate feedback in the form of the correct answer immediately after attempting a particular learning task such as answering a question. Another feature of Skinner’s original theory was that each successive stimulus-response step should be small enough to ensure that the learner was nearly always correct in his or her response.