The subject line is of course the title of an old movie (an perhaps an H.G.
Wells novel but I can't attest to the latter). There are at least two
worlds on CSG and they collide from time to time.
One world is that of what I will call the PCT-savvy. This world is
populated by the likes of Bill Powers, Rick Marken (and, or so I think,
Bruce Nevin). Dwelling here also are those who are trying--with intense
dedication I might add--to understand and apply PCT. These other denizens
of the PCT-savvy world include Tim Carey, Kenny (and, or so I believe,
Bruce Abbott and Bruce Gregory).
(By the way, it is not my intention to impugn anyone's grasp of PCT--I'm
simply using people to draw a distinction.)
The second world (and there are doubtless others) is populated by the likes
of Marc Abrams and myself. I can't speak for Marc but I can and will speak
for myself.
I'm a hanger-on, a camp follower, a dabbler or, as some (including myself)
have labeled me, a "dilettante." I'm looking for tools and techniques
(preferably backed by theory) that are helpful in wrestling with problems
encountered in the world of work and working. So bear with me while I tell
you a little story.
Along about 1970, I found myself in charge of the Navy's Programmed
Instruction Writer's course at the Naval Training Center in San Diego. The
course was viewed as the "high-end" of instructional technology at the
time. It was two weeks in length and judged as the most intellectually
demanding course then offered. Basically, you took a widely varying input
(enlisted, officers, civilians and foreign students of all kinds) and, in
two weeks, equipped them to prepare programmed instructional materials that
had to meet some pretty unforgiving criteria. In short, variable input and
reasonably constant output. (Sounds like a control system to me--or a meat
grinder.)
Anyway, I undertook the redesign of the course and I predicated that
redesign on a simple proposition. To use a behaviorist term, I reasoned
that if the trainees could discriminate the desired end result (i.e., a
well-written, properly validated self-instructional program), then they
could adjust-adapt-whatever their own behavior to result in that end product.
So, I set out to teach them NOT HOW to develop programmed instructional
materials but, instead, to tell the difference between good and bad
programmed instructional materials. I also made use of other behaviorist
methods, most notably, retrogressive or "backward" chaining (e.g., I taught
them to tell the difference between good and bad programmed instructional
materials BEFORE I taught them to tell the difference between an adequate
and an inadequate job/task analysis to use as the basis for developing
those programmed instructional materials.
The theoretical base for what I was doing back then was behaviorism--in
particular, it was the discrimination and chaining methods that came out of
Skinner's labs by way of a wonderfully wise and witty woman named Susan
Meyer Markle, author of "Good Frames and Bad" (a classic in its field).
Along about 1976, a fellow at AT&T introduced me to Bill Powers' book,
B:CP. Being an old fire control technician, I not only took an immediate
liking to the book, I also saw that it offered a much better theoretical
explanation for what all involved had much earlier pronounced "the
resounding success" of my re-write of the programmed instruction writers'
course at San Diego.
In PCT terms, I think what happened in San Diego in 1970 was this: I
managed to communicate and get accepted a set of standards or requirements
for programmed instructional materials. These constituted a set of
reference conditions toward which the trainees were willing to work. The
tools and techniques I subsequently provided were helpful to the trainees
as they controlled their own perceptions of the work products they were
producing in light of the work products they were expected to (and had
committed to) produce. I might be wrong but I think that's an application
of PCT and I for one am looking for more. There might not be any but that
won't stop me from looking until I'm convinced there aren't any.
'Nuff said...
Regards,
Fred Nickols
nickols@worldnet.att.net