Mastery Learning: Theory and Practice

STEPHEN P. WITTE ENGLISH DEPT, Mastery _ Learning Theory and Practice Edited by James H. Block With selected papers by Peter W.Airasian Benjamin S. Bloom John B. Carroll pees 12 HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON,INC. New York ¢ Chicago * San Francisco * Atlanta Dallas * Montreal * Toronto « London + Sydney. In Memoriam WILLIAM JOHN BLOCK Viet Nam (1947-1968) in Copyright © 1971 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70-14-7025 SBN: 03-086073-3 Printed in the United States of America 4321 090 987654321 ili PREFACE One of the most powerful ideas beginning to shape educational views and practices is mastery learning. It assumesthatall, or almost all, students can learn well and suggests explicit classroom procedures whereby all (up to 95 per cent) can achieve to high levels. Few recent ideas have produced more dramatic positive effects on student learning or generated more interest and school- based research than mastery learning. This book brings together for the first time the basic mastery ideas and the relevant supporting research. The volumeconsists of two major parts. In Part One, a collection of articles focuses on both the theory behind mastery learning and the operating procedures required to implement an effective mastery strategy ina course, subject, or even an entire curriculum. Part Two presents an extensive annotated bibliography of mastery learning research. Studies bearing on the major mastery learning variables and those describing various successful mastery strategies have been ab- stracted. This arrangement is designed so that teachers, adminis- trators, curriculum-makers, and researchers can draw some important implications from the data presented, pose some major questions, and suggest possible future research and newstrategies. Over the years educators have becomeconvincedthat only a few students can learn what we have to teach. Hopefully, the ideas and findings presented here will reverse this conviction. Preface iv * *K * K This book could not have been completed without the assistance of many persons. I would like to thank Kenneth M, Collins, Mildred KE. Kersh, Hogwon Kim, Christopher Modu, Kay Torshen, Robert Wise, and William J. Wright for their aid in abstracting some of the relevant mastery learning research. Special acknow- ledgments are due to John B. Carroll for his kind permission to reprint one of his papers and to Peter W. Airasian for his contri- butions to the Bibliography and his preparation of one of the mastery learning papers. Special recognition is also extended to Mrs. Ellen Hersheyfor her help in editing the manuscript and to Robert Zvolensky for his aid in preparing the manuscript for publication. Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Benjamin 8. Bloom and to my wife, Susan, for their many contri- butions to all aspects of the volume. It was under Dr. Bloom's direction and with his encouragement that I first began to assemble the book. In addition to contributing abstracts and a specially prepared paper, he read and commented on earlier manuscripts. Susan provided encouragement throughout the writing. She also typed and helped edit, proof-read, and prepare the final manuscript. J. H. B. October, 1970 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART ONE: Selected Papers on Mastery Learning 1 Chapter 1: Introduction to Mastery Learning: Theory and 2 Practice JAMES H. BLOCK Chapter 2: Affective Consequences of School Achievement 13 BENJAMIN S. BLOOM Chapter 3: Problems of Measurement Related to the 29 Concept of Learning for Mastery JOHN B. CARROLL Chapter 4: Mastery Learning 7 BENJAMIN S. BLOOM Chapter 5: Operating Procedures for Mastery Learning 64 JAMES H. BLOCK Chapter 6: The Role of Evaluation in Mastery Learning 7 PETER W,. AIRASIAN PART TWO: An Annotated Bibliography on Mastery Learning 89 Introduction 90 Summary of Mastery Learning Research Ye A. Aptitude and Rate of Learning Ye B. Ability to Understand Instruction 9e C. Quality of Instruction 93 D. Perseverance 94 E. Time as a Variable in Attaining Mastery 95 F, Affective Consequences of School Learning 95 G. Use of Mastery Learning Concepts and Strategies 96 Abstracts 98 INDEX 148 PART ONE SELECTED PAPERS ON MASTERY LEARNING Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION TO MASTERY LEARNING: THEORY AND PRACTICE James H. Block American education is approaching a critical period in its history. Despite great advances in knowledge about student learning and the investment of tremendous amounts of time, effort, and money, our schools still have not moved very far toward the goal of increased learning for all students. Present policies and practices continue to reproduce the same normal achievement distri- bution in the learning of classroom after classroom of students that was produced in the learning of the students’ parents and perhaps grandparents. Thus the schools continue to provide successful and rewardinglearning experiences for only about one-third learners. Recent research clearly suggests we can no longer afford to allow one, let alone a majority, of our students face ten to twelve long years of unsuccessful and unrewarding school learning experiences. Such experiences limit an individual's chances for eco- nomic survival and security in the world of work. Heis likelyto acquire neither the basic skills nor the interests and attitudes required to obtain and/or maintain a job which can ensure him a decent standard of living. Such experiences also jeopardize the individual's psychologicalwell-being. The evidence indicates a strong, perhaps causal, Tink between a pupil's history of school learning success or failure and his personality development (See Chapter 2). A student's inability to meet the school's learning ‘Deevas Vartapd 04“hee cad p bebvea— open Cin Ffarkri« anh are frre Introduction to Mastery Learning: Theory and Practice/Block 3 requirements tends to cause the developmentof a negative self- concept in minimally the academic arena. Further, for about 20 per cent of all students, the repeated frustration, humiliation, and despair engendered by their inability to meet these requirements may cause mental health problems. Mastery learning (Bloom, 1968) offers a powerful new approach to student learning which can provide almost all students with the successful and rewarding learning experiences now allowed to only afew. It proposes that all or almost all students can master what they are taught. Further, it suggests procedures whereby each student's instruction and learning can be so/man- Bed]wits the context of ordinary group-based classroom instruc- ion, as to promote his fullest development. Mastery learning enables 75 to 90 per cent of the students to achieve to the same high level as the top 25 per cent learning under typical group-based instructional methods. It also makes student learning moreeffi- cient than conventional approaches. Students learn more material in less time. Finally, mastery learning produces marke reater student unterest thein attitude subject than us - ualclassroommethods. raaetinghaaanir] Lataoe a attbidh-larvrir-AO HISTORY OF MASTERY LEARNING Although effective mastery strategies have been developed only recently, the idea of learning for mastery is quite old. As early as the 1920's there were at least two major attempts to pro- duce mastery in students’ learning. One was the Winnetka Plan of Carleton Washburneandhis associates (1922); the other was an approach developed by Professor Henry C. Morris at the University of Chicago's Laboratory School. These approacnesshared many major features. ‘First, mas- tery_was defined Li active 3 student wasexpectedto.achiewa, The objectives were> cognitive for Washburne and cognitive, affective, and even psychomotor for Morrison. Second, instruction was organized into well-defined learning units. Each unit consisted of a collection of learning materials systematically arranged to teach the desired unit objectives (Washburne) or objective (Morrison). Third, complete mastery of each unit was required of students before proceeding to the next. This feature was especially important in the Winnetka Plan because the units tended to be sequenced so that the learning of each unit built upon prior learning. Fourth, andiagnostic-progresswas adminis- tered at the completion of each unit to provide feedback on the adequacy of the student's learning. This test either indicated unit Introduction to Mastery Learning: Theory and Practice /Block 4 mastery,and thus reinforced his learning or it highlighted the material he still needed to master. Fifth, on the basis of this diagnostic information, each student's original instructionwas supplemented with appropriate learning correctives so that he couldcompletehis unitIearning. In the Winnetka Plan, primarilyself-instructional practice materials were used, although the teacher occasionally tutored individuals or small groups. In Morrison's approach a variety of correctives were used - - for example, reteaching, tutoring, restructuring the original learning activities, and redir- ecting student study habi Finally, time was used as a variable in individualizing instruction and thereby in fostering student learning mastery. Under the Winnetka Plan student learning wasself- paced -- each student was allowed all the time he needed to master a unit. Under Morrison's method each student was allowed the learning time his teacher required to bring all or almostall students to unit mastery. While especially Morrison's method was popular into the 1930's, eventually the idea of mastery learning disappeared due primarily to the lack of the technology required to sustain a successful strategy. The idea did not resurface until the late 1950's and early 1960's as_a corollar n. A basic idea underlying programedinstruction was that the learning of any behavior, no matter how complex, rested upon the learning of a sequence of less-complex camponent-behaviers (Skinner, 1954). Theoretically, therefore, by breaking a complex behavior down into a chain of component behaviors and by ensuring student mastery of each link in the chain, it would be possible for any student to master even the most complex skills.

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