Boy, I find these texts extremely unpleasant. It’s amazing how popular they were in the 60’s.
But I know that e.g. The Little Schemer/Lisper are popular, and clearly these texts were very popular some decades ago. I asked on Twitter; people shared that they liked the feedback, and that it was less likely that they ended up totally lost.
In some sense, it was absorbed into more complex (no longer linear) computer-based models, like Intelligent tutoring system.
Rutherford (2003), on Benjamin (1988): “He suggested instead that cultural inertia, resistance to technology, or “simply old-fashioned resistance to change” (p. 711) contributed to the machine’s failure to thrive. He also noted the general failure of educational technologies (the teaching machine among them) that appear to invalidate the student-teacher bond — a bond that has traditionally been seen as an essential ingredient in the learning process.” On that latter point, see also Dan Meyer’s comments on GPT-4 in education; e.g. It’s Pretty Clear That These Math Students Aren’t Interested in Learning From an AI Chatbot Tutor: “I can just say, as simply and emphatically as possible, that when K-12 students are in a classroom with other humans trying to learn mathematics, the majority of them do not wish to have a conversation with their computer. They wish to have conversations with the other humans. They do not wish to be complimented and seen as smart and successful by their computer. They wish to be complimented and seen as smart and successful by the humans in whom they have invested their social capital”.
Rutherford also suggests that the inherent Behaviorism slant may have doomed PI: the programs aren’t meant to “teach” but rather to “shape complex forms of behavior” (i.e. via Operant conditioning).
And: “A writer for Harper’s Magazine, himself a developer of programmed texts…reported the opinion held by some critics that the learning offered by programmed instruction actually helped no one but the programmer.“ (really echoes Studying another person’s spaced repetition memory prompts is usually ineffective)
One consistent theme in both Benjamin and Rutherford’s analysis is that the cultural atmosphere of the 60s was important to PI’s decline—people were already worried about alienation, loss of freedom, technocracy, etc.
Pressey (1963) suggests that the key problem with PI is that it throws the baby out with the bathwater: prose and language are useful!
For a learner with reading-study skills, conventional textual matter orders and structures its contents in paragraphs, sections, and chapters. It exhibits that structure in headings and the table of contents, makes all readily available in an index with page headings and numbers. The learner thus has multiple aids to the development and structuring of his understanding. If need be, he can, with a flick of the finger, move about in the material. He can skip the already known, turn back as a result of a later felt need, review selectively. As a way to present matter to be learned, the average textbook may not be best. But thousands of frames on a teaching-machine roll or strung through a programmed book would seem close to the worst. … Instead of trying to improve their programs, the programers might better consider very broadly how best to present matter for learning. The opinion is ventured that the best will be found closer to texts than to their programs.
It’s particularly interesting to read Pressey’s remarks, given that he’s credited for the original conception of the automated teaching machine later elaborated and promoted by B. F. Skinner. Roughly speaking, Pressey advocates for a move away from Behaviorism and toward Cognitivism.
Critically, it may not have even really worked; see Pressey (1962), p.32’s litany of studies with null experimental results (i.e. in comparison to simply reading the questions and answers transformed into declarative sentences). This would be surprising, given Testing effect, but it may be a representation of just how damaging the format was to the reading process.
B. F. Skinner suggests (1984) that bad writing may have been the problem (reminds me of Writing good spaced repetition memory prompts is hard). But of course, he goes on to suggest that it’s because people have “deeply entrenched views of human behavior” which he feels are wrong. “Cognitive psychology is causing much more trouble”, he says (of course).
Related, but not exactly PI:
Rutherford, A. (2003). B F Skinner’s technology of behavior in American life: From consumer culture to counterculture. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 39, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.10090
Benjamin, L. T. (1988). A History of Teaching Machines. American Psychologist.
Pressey, S. L. (1962). Basic unresolved teaching‐machine problems. Theory Into Practice, 1(1), 30–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405846209541773
Pressey, S. L. (1963). Teaching machine (and learning theory) crisis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 47(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0047740
Skinner, B. F. (1984). The Shame of American Education. American Psychologist.