Abstract
The contents of instructional programs must be specified in sufficient detail so that they can be followed and delivered in a consistent and coherent manner by all teachers. Just as an instructional designer would like to account for academic improvement partly as a result of the program’s clear specification, the designer must also be ready to accept blame for academic failure partly or wholly because of ambiguity in specificity. The emphasis on procedural detail is most important for the mentally retarded or the low-performing individual. These individuals are highly dependent on what occurs in the classroom for their initial and continuing source of academic information in traditional content areas. A program that permits and encourages wide latitude in teacher presentation in effect prevents consistent coverage of material and does the low performer and the technology of instruction a great injustice. Without being able to reconstruct fairly precisely what was taught to the low performer, and how it was taught, one is unable to account for and begin to modify the instructional variables causing any academic setbacks. Further, to ask the teacher to return to earlier and presumably easier formats for correcting present learning difficulties is impossible with programs lacking instructional detail. Although these factors seem obvious, it is surprising how many behavior analysts called into the classroom to reconcile academic difficulties fail to search curriculum material and teacher manuals for completeness in instructional specificity.
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Weisberg, P., Packer, R.A., Weisberg, R.S. (1981). Academic Training. In: Matson, J.L., McCartney, J.R. (eds) Handbook of Behavior Modification with the Mentally Retarded. Applied Clinical Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-7130-8_10
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