The Baby Figure of the Giant Mass of Things to Come

Reviews the book, Student Response in Programmed Instruction: A Symposium on Experimental Studies of Cue and Response Factors in Group and Individual Learning From Instructional Media edited by A. A. Lumsdaine (1961). This collection of efforts by 22 scientists who worked at several university and government centers over a period of seven years comprises 31 chapters and an appendix containing 19 abstracts bringing the total volume to over 500 pages with no index. Efforts to study problems of instruction unfortunately are often short-lived. The greater struggle for a theoretical understanding and for ideational continuity is apparent in each of the 31 chapters but most obvious in Sheffield's chapter and in Lumsdaine's summarization. The volume does contain several findings which may come as a surprise to readers. The stimulus control of performance is central to the studies in this volume. Through the management of cues and prompts, new perceptions and learning are developed. These studies offer primitive, though convincing, evidence for the argument that experimental inquiry generated by theory is the only way to promote the healthy development of the infant technology of education. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)