Unit Mastery Research Articles

Keller's Personalized System of Instruction: Was it a fleeting fancy or is there a revival on the horizon?

Keller's Personalized System of Instruction dominated the literature in the teaching of psychology and behavior analysis in the 1970s and 1980s. After this brief flourish of interest, PSI research trickled off to a nearly imperceptible stream in the 1990s. However, with the increasing availability and ease of use of computers and the internet, along with demand created by an ever-growing need for distance education, PSI is beginning to curry favor among a new generation of faculty members. The question of whether this resurgence of interest will be permanent revival or fleeting fancy will depend on how researchers deal with the PSI paradoxes that stymied the researchers of the 1970s and 1980s. This article will review the current state of PSI research including the riddles left to be untangled, illustrate how computers have affected the PSI movement, and discuss the role PSI might play in distance education. Keywords: Personalized System of Instruction, PSI, Mastery-Based Learning, Distance Education, Fred Keller, Keller Method, Keller Plan, Mastery. ********** Keller's Personalized System of Instruction Keller created the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) in the late 1960s in order to help students in Brazil be able to learn course material without an instructor standing by their side. Soon after, he brought his PSI program back to the United States. Due to its heavy reliance on behavioral principles, it was quickly adopted by many psychology professors and by individuals outside of psychology. Keller (1968) outlined five basic components that he deemed to be essential for a PSI class: (1) mastery of course material, (2) the use of proctors, (3) self-pacing, (4) stress upon the written word, and (5) use of lectures and demonstrations primarily for motivational purposes. In a standard PSI course, the course material is broken down into small units of study (e.g., one textbook chapter). The unit mastery component requires that students learn this small quantity of information and pass a test over this information by reaching some mastery criterion (e.g., 80%, 85%, 90%, or 95% correct). If students do not reach the mastery criterion then they restudy the information and retake the unit test as many times as it takes for them to demonstrate mastery of the material. Course credit is awarded when the unit has been mastered and there is no penalty imposed for not passing a unit test on a given attempt. The intent behind this is to reinforce test-taking attempts and mastering those tests while not punishing incorrect responses or failed attempts at mastery. Another element in PSI is the use of proctors. Proctors, alternatively called mentors, peer-reviewers, or tutors, are students who have previously mastered the material. Students can either be ones who have previously taken the course and are hired or given course credit for serving as proctors (called external proctors by Sherman, 1992), or they can be students enrolled in the course who have previously mastered a given unit of study (called internal proctors; Sherman, 1977). The proctors provide individualized feedback to PSI students about their unit test performance and often provide individualized tutoring in areas where the student is weak. The self-pacing feature of PSI courses allows students to move through the course material at their own pace. Thus, they can spend less time on material they understand and more time on areas they find difficult. In the initial PSI courses developed by Keller, students were not constrained by the traditional semester barriers. Rather, they could continue to work on a given course until they passed all of the unit tests. Finally, within Keller's system the instructor is seen as the facilitator of learning rather than the person who imparts knowledge. For PSI students classroom meetings are typically used to help clarify material and motivate students to be engaged learners. …

Keller Plan applied to instruction in acoustics

Undergraduate students in audiology, speech pathology, and education of the deaf present two problems for the would-be teacher of acoustics. First, they are typically deficient in basic mathematics and physics. As a result, they fall victim to “symbol shock,” a disorder characterized by glazed eyes and cortical dysfunction. Second, they require at least a modest understanding of acoustics for their later professional health. A reasonable treatment has been found in the form of the Keller Plan or the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI). This plan has been used successfully for four years in an undergraduate course designed to convey the rudiments of physical acoustics, bioacoustics, and psychoacoustics. PSI uses explicit performance criteria, unit mastery, self-pacing, and individualized tutoring. Laboratory demonstrations are used for motivational purposes and to promote student discovery. Critical information is conveyed by the written word; lectures are given only upon student request. Details of the PSI method will be presented, as well as the results of a modest retrospective analysis of the course taught under traditional and PSI formats.

AN EXPERIMENTAL COMPARISON OF A CONTINGENCY MANAGED COURSE WITH LARGE LECTURE METHOD1

Contingency management procedures resembling the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) were compared with a conventional lecture method in teaching an introductory psychology course. The use of a within‐subjects design in which half of the students experienced both teaching conditions made it possible to examine the reliability of test‐score differences over time when subjects were balanced over conditions. In the contingency management course, material was broken down into 14 small units, each unit covering about 30 pages of text. Students were assigned to an undergraduate teaching assistant who was encouraged to develop a close working relationship with each of his/her 13 assigned students. Specifically, this meant that the assistant was to call each student by his/her first name, show an interest in the student's quiz performance, help the student understand difficult concepts, and discuss various topics of interest to the student. Each week, the teaching assistant administered up to four different 10‐item multiple‐choice quizzes over the week's chapter. A modified “Doomsday Contingency” required each student either to achieve a score of 80% on one of the four quizzes or drop the course. Most students passed the quiz during the first session of the week; those not passing were tutored on special areas of weakness. No student was actually forced to leave the course under the Doomsday Contingency. Although quizzes were administered on a group basis, they were scored individually while the student stood near by. In addition to the weekly quiz assignment, students under the contingency management procedures were asked to attend one lecture per week. The contingency management method departed from traditional PSI in that (1) self pacing was minimal, such that students were required to master one unit per week or drop the course, (2) teaching assistants met with students in small groups, and usually gave individual tutoring only to those students who did not pass the quiz on the first attempt, and (3) students were asked to attend one lecture per week. However, it was similar to PSI in that small units of subject matter were assigned and unit mastery was assessed through use of undergraduate assistants who delivered immediate feedback. Students in the conventional lecture group attended three 50‐min lectures each week; two of these lectures followed textbook material closely, while the third, which was attended by all students, concerned material only indirectly related to the text. As a result, students in both conditions were exposed to essentially identical material. Students in the lecture condition could also obtain copies of the unit quizzes, although few did so. Course grades were determined by scores on two 45‐item multiple‐choice hourly exams, each covering half of the semester material (each worth 25%), and by a 90‐item final exam over the entire course (worth 50%). These measures also served as the dependent variables. The experimental design employed a crossover technique in which one fourth of the students began with the contingency management method and then switched to lecture method at midsemester, while another fourth began with the lecture method and switched to contingency management. The other students stayed in the same condition throughout the semester, half under contingency management and half under the lecture method. On the last day of class, all students filled out an extensive questionnaire that assessed their opinions and attitudes about the teaching techniques. In addition to allowing for assessment of any progressive effects that the contingency management procedures might have had over time, the crossover design also permitted students to make meaningful comparisons of the two teaching methods, since half of the students experienced both methods in the same course. Although average test performance was only slightly higher under the contingency management condition, this difference occurred on each exam and was statistically reliable in each case. Further, the method did not interact with time, as it produced about a three‐item advantage per half semester. On each of the three exams, teaching method accounted for between 5 and 8% of the total variance in test scores. Finally, attitude measures indicated that students experiencing half a semester of the contingency management procedures preferred them to the lecture technique, but that only those students with a full semester of contingency management rated the course significantly better than students in the full semester lecture course.

The Relative Effectiveness of Individualized and Traditional Instruction Methods1

195 students were divided into two sections in an undergraduate course. One of the sections received instruction under the traditional lecture-examination format. The other received individualized instruction which included behavioral objectives, a unit approach, unit mastery requirements, and self-pacing. The unit completion activities for the individualized group involved the writing of short papers. The instructors, class meetings, readings, and examinations were identical for both groups. The performance of the two groups was compared through the use of multiple-choice, short answer, and essay examinations. The results revealed that the individualized group performed better on the essay exam and the traditional group performed better on the multiple-choice exams. Students in the individualized group reported the course to produce more learning, to be more work, more flexible, equal in difficulty, and more accurate in grading than students in the traditional section reported it to be. It was concluded that students under individualized instruction view their course more favorably than students under traditional instruction, but that individualized instruction produces superior performance to traditional instruction only when the unit completion activities of the individualized section are similar to the behaviors required on the examination instruments.

Student Attitudes and Willingness to Spend Time in Unit Mastery Learning

Student Attitudes and Willingness to Spend Time in Unit Mastery Learning

Fixed and Ascending Criteria for Unit Mastery Learning.

The effects of passing criteria upon quiz performance and completion of unit mastery courses were investigated. The first of three classes was conducted with a 90% mastery criterion successively approximated across quizzes from a low of 60% and with an average criterion of 80%. In the second class, the mastery criterion was fixed at 80% on all quizzes. The third class was conducted with the criterion fixed at 90% correct. Relative to the latter class, students in the 60%-90% class and the 80% class performed better in several respects on unit quizzes,passed units at a higher rate, and received fewer course grades of fail or the equivalent. Further, relative to the 80% class, the 60%90% students attained a higher degree of accuracy on quizzes for which 80% and 90% criteria were in effect, required fewer attempts overall to master unit quizzes, and made less use of a bonus procedure which was designed to allow students to lower their own passing criteria. These results have special significance with respect to the problem of high failure rates in courses taught by these methods. Unit mastery learning (self-paced or individualized instruction) refers to an instructional method with two essential features: (a) Course content is segmented into a number of relatively short, self-contained units upon each of which a student is tested; (b) The opportunity for a student to proceed to successive tests is contingent upon attainment of a high criterion (mastery) on the unit tests. While this form of instruction generally induces high levels of performance in a majority of students (e.g., Johnston & Pennypacker, 1971), Keller (1967) was the first to point out that a serious defect of these methods is reflected in the proportion of students who fail to progress through courses taught in this way. Ultimately about 29 % of the original enrollment in one of Keller's classes did not earn passing grades. Similarly, in another introductory psychology course taught by unit mastery techniques, failures and withdrawals in excess of 25% were re

Unit Mastery Learning in an Introductory Geography Course

(1975). Unit Mastery Learning in an Introductory Geography Course. Journal of Geography: Vol. 74, No. 1, pp. 25-31.

The Effects of Student Tutors on Learning by Unit Mastery Instructional Methods

In a section of an introductory psychology course employing unit-mastery learning procedures, small groups of students were assigned to individual tutors for testing and tutoring. In 2 other sections unassigned groups of tutors were made available to students. Relative to the latter sections, the individually tutored students performed at a higher level in a number of respects on the unit quizzes, earned higher course grades, and expressed more favorable attitudes toward their tutors. The results were interpreted in terms of interactions between the reinforcing value of the tutors and the types of student-tutor relationships which evolved in the testing situation.

Visual Perception: A Transfer of “Products” Found in the Key to Learning

Research studies in the verbal production of a broad spectrum of subjects indicate that a certain type of verbal behavior (paradigmatic) was present in subjects who had achieved some success in formal schooling, while low achievers displayed a type of verbal response classified as syntagmatic. The author states that the “products” of the intellect requires a mastery of units, relations, classes, systems, transformations, and implication, and describes the implementation of a “product” scale in teaching the visual discrimination of letters.

Textbooks in Mathematics for Junior High SchoolJunior Mathematics for Today, Book Two. William BetzUnit Mastery Mathematics: Book One. John C. Stone , Clifford N. Mills , Virgil S. Mallory

Previous articleNext article No AccessEducational WritingsTextbooks in Mathematics for Junior High School . William Betz Junior Mathematics for Today, Book Two. William Betz Unit Mastery Mathematics: Book One. John C. Stone , Clifford N. Mills , Virgil S. Mallory Oliver L. TroxelOliver L. Troxel Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 43, Number 1Jan., 1935 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/439743 Journal History This article was published in The School Review (1893-1979), which is continued by the American Journal of Education (1979-present). PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:Unit Mastery Arithmetic, by John C. Stone, Professor of Mathematics, State Teachers College, Montclair, New Jersey and Clifford N. Mills, Professor of Mathematics, State Normal University, Normal Illinois. Illustrated by Marion C. Allen.Recent Advances in Physical Chemistry by Samuel Glasstone, Lecturer in Physical Chemistry, University of Sheffield. First edition.Qualitative Analysis by Olin Freeman Tower, Hurlbut Professor of Chemistry in Adelbert College of Western Reserve University. Sixth edition, revised.The First Year of Chemistry by John C. Hessler, Professor of Chemistry, Knox College. First edition.Laboratory Exercises to Accompany the Brownlee‐Fuller‐Hancock‐Sohon‐Whitset Chemistry by the same authors. Revised loose‐leaf edition.Report of a Study of the Secondary Curriculum, by a committee of Preparatory School Educators with Mr. Howard T. Smith, Executive Secretary of the Secondary Education Board, Milton, Mass., as Chairman. pp.Mathematical Nuts by Samuel I. Jones, Assistant Secretary and Treasurer of the Life and Casualty Insurance Company, Nashville, Tenn., and formerly Professor of Mathematics in David Lipscomb College, Nashville, Tenn. Cloth.Useful Science by Henry T. Weed, Head of the Science Department Girls Commercial High School, Brooklyn, New York and Frank A. Rexford, Director of Civics, City of New York Book One.

Book Review: Unit Mastery Arithmetic

Book Review: Unit Mastery Arithmetic