Programmed Instruction.

The programmed instruction movement was developed by American psychologist B. F. Skinner during the 1950s. Programmed instruction, modeled after the scientific method, arose as a response to teacher shortages and to increasing student populations. It automates instruction through breaking up curriculum into small, self-contained, manageable frames that are then logically sequenced in a systematic manner and presented through technological devices. Ultimately, the goal of programmed instruction is to control learning through measuring observable outcomes and through devising precise methodologies of teaching that are guaranteed to work. Programmed instruction has been extinguished as a movement, but its influences form the foundation for much of modern education. Systematization of instruction through codified objectives, evaluation methods (especially through standardized testing), and techniques of teaching that emphasize a back to the basics, step-by-step approach are, for example, some of the ways in which programmed instruction influenced the educational field as it is understood in the present.