One of the most interesting and challenging problems to confront those interested in the learning process in recent years is the entire area of the self-instructional device, or "teaching machine." The idea of the teaching machine is not new, for Pressey (49) in 1926 wrote concerning a device he had developed, and at the same time indicated that he had had such a device in mind for "a number of years." After this introduction by Pressey, the teaching machine movement lay dormant for several years with only an occasional article written that had any direct relationship to this area. This was not to last indefinitely, however, because during the past ten years the interest has gradually been growing to the point that at the present time this movement demands consideration. It is difficult to identify precisely why this has been the case, but a few reasons might be suggested. The demand on education is greater now than it has ever been before (47, 57): there are more people wanting education, there are more students receiving education, the percentage of school-age persons participating is increasing, and the teacher-pupil ratio is not remaining at a desirable level. To further intensify this problem, much more is being demanded. from education in the general areas of curriculum and desired levels of competence. Since this presents the educational system with the obvious task of keeping abreast of these demands, the educator has been forced to search for more effective and efficient methods of instruction. Glaser (28) in his review suggests that the trend is toward closer cooperation and coordination of effort between "educational psychology" and the "science of learning." The experimentalist and the learning theorist are working more closely together on training and learning problems than they ever have before. A final reason for this increased interest, according to Holland (31), is that in the past the interest has been largely on the device itself, but in recent years this has shifted to focus upon the fact that a person's behavior can be altered in situations outside of the laboratory by the application and utilization of certain psychological principles. These same principles can be incorporated in the teaching machine. Not only is this movement intriguing, but it presents a great challenge, for there are a great number of problems, first to be identified, and second to be solved. From all indications this interest will not dissipate, but rather will become more universal with widespread implications for the student, the teacher, the administrator, the psychologist, and the parent (4, 18, 47). The implications are not confined to t hose associated with a school setting, for as Skinner (57) indicates there is additional application in home study, industrial training, military training, and special education of the exceptional individual. No doubt there are others but this will serve to illustrate the potentially wide-spread effects.

The last fifty years have seen rapid growth in student enrollment in online courses. However, few systematic investigations have been utilized to identify best practices in online education experimentally. Skinner (1958) laid out a science of teaching derived from the principles of operant conditioning, and methods for adopting programmed instruction into the evolving technology of his time. In what he termed a "Teaching Machine," automated instruction programmed contingencies for the student with self-paced, carefully designed sequences towards mastery of the material. This series of investigations evaluated the efficacy of programmed instruction in online courses, as measured by quiz performance, the frequency of discussion posts, instructor time commitment, generalization, maintenance, and student perceptions of the online modalities used. The online classrooms were all conducted through Adobe Connect Meeting Software (2017) to include both asynchronous and synchronous online arrangements. Experiment 1 compared the effects of on-campus delivered lectures and online delivered lectures on weekly quiz performance, percentage correct on within assessments forms, the frequency of questions asked, participant preference, and generalization measures. Experiment 2 compared the effects of lectures delivered exclusively online and module packets, designed with components of Skinnerian programmed instruction, on weekly quiz performance, instructor time commitment, participant preference of both experimental conditions, and generalization measures. Experiment 3 compared the effects of online lectures + discussion and module packets + chat on weekly quiz performance, participant preference, and generalization measures. With the increasing demand for university courses delivered exclusively online, results are discussed on the viability of automated, programmed instruction to teach course material exclusively online.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the comparative effectiveness of three out-of-class procedures designed to augment a conventional classroom instructional method in a course in the fundamentals of music for elementary education students. The procedures examined were (a) conventional out-of-class study assignments; (b) out-of-class individual use of a programed textbook; and (c) out-of- class individual use of a teaching machine program. This study was concerned with measures of achievement in fundamentals of music as taught to elementary education students at North Texas State University, Denton, Texas, during the 1963-1964 school year. The measures of achievement in music were limited to the pre-test of fundamentals of music and to the post test, interim test, and retention test of fundamentals of music.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T13:17:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gisele de Lima Fernandes Ribeiro.pdf: 895839 bytes, checksum: b953eb0cce4caa6187e102d48f128a79 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-29 / Skinner, in the book The Techonology of Teaching (1968), introduces guiding principles for a teaching program that leads to a behavior changing of the student towards the expected objectives. In order to analyze how the principles, established in the late sixties and still studied nowadays by behavior analysts, could contribute to distance education, a type of teaching that although it is not recent, has been developing a lot lately, this study, based on the investigation of a teaching method applied to an online subject of a regular undergraduate course, proposes a teaching method for distance education based on the principles of the teaching program proposed by Skinner. This study was developed in distinct phases. In the first one, based on the description of the teaching methodology of the subject taught through distance education, there was the detailing of its constituents elements, evaluation activities and the suggested path for their achievement. The comparison between the teaching proposal and the implementation of one of its teaching units was performed in the second phase of the study. In the following stage, the teaching proposal was analyzed according to the principles considered by Skinner as necessary for the planning of contingency which leads to the behavior changing of the student towards the expected objectives. In the fourth phase, the results were evaluated from the point of view of the students learning and in the fifth phase, the relation between these results and the specific characteristics of the unit program were analyzed. Finally, in the sixth phase, proposals for adjusting the contingencies in the teaching unit analyzed were made, covering the principles defended by Skinner for the teaching programming. Alternative proposals were made considering the institution possible limitations as well as any legislation impossibilities. Based on the results obtained, it is discussed that the application of the principles proposed by Skinner 50 years ago for distance education demonstrates the usefulness and the relevance of these principles for the teaching planning and that they can be effectively applied to this teaching type. It is also discussed that the technological resources, commonly used in this type of education, contribute to the application of what Skinner devised in the late sixties / Skinner, no livro Tecnologia do Ensino (1968), apresenta princípios norteadores para uma programação de ensino que leve à mudança do comportamento do estudante na direção dos objetivos propostos. Com o intuito de analisar como esses princípios, instituídos no final da década de 60, e estudados até hoje por analistas do comportamento, poderiam contribuir com a educação a distância, uma modalidade de ensino, que embora não seja recente, tem se desenvolvido muito nos últimos anos, o presente trabalho, a partir da investigação de um método de ensino utilizado em uma disciplina on-line de um curso de graduação presencial, propôs um método de ensino para a modalidade a distância pautada nas características da programação de ensino proposta por Skinner. O trabalho foi desenvolvido em fases distintas. A primeira, caracterizada pela descrição da metodologia de ensino da disciplina ministrada na modalidade a distância, se deu a partir do detalhamento de seus elementos constituintes, das atividades avaliativas e do percurso sugerido para sua realização. A comparação entre a proposta de ensino e como de fato se deu a implementação de uma de suas unidades de ensino foi realizada na segunda fase do trabalho. Na fase seguinte analisou-se a proposta da unidade de ensino de acordo com os princípios considerados por Skinner como necessários para o planejamento de contingências que levem à mudança do comportamento do estudante na direção dos objetivos estabelecidos. Na quarta fase, avaliaram-se, então, os resultados da unidade de ensino do ponto de vista da aprendizagem dos estudantes e na quinta fase, analisou-se a relação desses resultados com as características específicas da programação da unidade. Finalmente, na sexta fase, foram feitas propostas de adaptação das contingências dispostas na unidade de ensino analisada, contemplando-se os princípios defendidos por Skinner para a programação de ensino. Propostas alternativas foram feitas, considerando-se possíveis limites impostos pelas condições da instituição, bem como aqueles impostos pela legislação vigente. A partir dos resultados obtidos discute-se que a aplicação dos princípios propostos por Skinner, há cerca de meio século, na educação a distância, evidencia a utilidade e a atualidade destes princípios para o planejamento do ensino, e que estes podem ser empregados de maneira efetiva nesta modalidade de ensino. Discute-se, ainda, que os recursos tecnológicos, comumente utilizados nesta modalidade, contribuem para aplicação do que Skinner idealizou no final da década de 60