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Session 2793

Teacher Gone… The Marginalization of PSI In Engineering Education

David R. Haws Boise State University

Abstract

In 1968 Fred Keller published his description of the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), in the first issue of the Journal of Applied Behavior and Analysis. Over the next 9 years, this particular journal published 21 additional PSI articles, but then virtually stopped, with only a small handful of papers appearing over the following two decades. Between 1970 and 1978, the American Journal of Physics published 35 PSI papers and notes and then abruptly stopped, publishing only three additional PSI papers in 1981, 1982, and 1984. In 1970, Billy Koen published the first Engineering PSI journal article in ASEE’s Engineering Education. Over the next 9 years, Engineering Education published 23 additional PSI journal articles and notes, again trailing off into a handful of papers during the 1980’s. Similar patterns can be found in other engineering education journals such as IEEE Transactions on Education, and Chemical Engineering Education.

The PSI literature presents an overwhelmingly positive picture of a transformational teaching method. And yet the attention of educators faded in a few short years. Bits and pieces of this enigma can be teased from the literature itself. But for a more complete understanding, we need to look at the larger picture of higher education in America, within the context of changing perceptions and consistent social objectives. This paper will discuss the author’s interpretation of why PSI is under-utilized in engineering education, including conflicting views of the learning process, the university research paradigm, isolation and pettiness within the professoriate, and political pressure to maintain class privilege.

Introduction: PSI and the Valley of Dry Bones

Sometimes, when looking at the literature of higher education from a historical perspective, I am impressed by the ethereal nature of what we do as a professoriate. The PSI literature from the early 1970’s, like Daniel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, holds only the faintest reminder of something that once had flesh and passion. During the initial phase of the literature, no one embraced PSI more enthusiastically than the community of engineering educators. Massive amounts of space were devoted to PSI in engineering education journals and conference proceedings. And yet, by the 1980’s and 90’s, when I managed to progress through my own engineering education, I failed to encounter even the least reminder that PSI had ever existed. Today when I mention PSI to engineering educators, they are either totally unaware of the method, or they clap their hands over aging ears and run screaming from the room. How could anything that was such a focus of our attention 25 years ago disappear so quickly and completely?

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Haws, D. R. (2000, June), Teacher Gone... The Marginalization Of Psi In Engineering Education Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8738