A Rational Analysis of the Process of Instruction

Instruction is defined as a process for controlling student behavior so as to insure student learning, rather than as a process for merely presenting information to students to learn in whatever way they can. Learning, in turn, is defined in terms of behavioral associationism. Thus, the problem of specifying an instructional program so as to lead to effective control of student learning as directly as possible is largely a problem of adequately describing the behaviors required of the student at specified points in the instructional program. The main body of the paper is concerned with the general application of these basic definitions to the problems of: 1) Identifying what it is that is to be learned, 2) Sequencing the order in which instructional materials are to be presented, 3) Designing instructional situations for accomplishing the desired learning. Evaluation is defined as consisting of two major aspects: 1) Evaluation of the effectiveness of the instruction for inculcating students with the behaviors selected for them to learn, 2) Evaluation of the effectiveness of the behaviors selected for the student to learn for producing adequate job performance.