Achievement Treatment Interactions

Abstract

The field of education is currently filled with numerous attempts to inspire educators to implement and researchers to study individualized instruction. But, adapting instruction to the student is hardly new in education. Plato's famous dialogue with the slave boy Meno is an ancient attempt to suit instruction to the student. Cohen (1963) attempted to recast this classic dialogue into a linear program, thus neatly relating the ancient and modern interest in adapting instruction to the student. Despite this persistent interest in individualized instruction, there are few systematic attempts to adapt the method of instruction to student characteristics. Existing adaptations generally consist of varying instructional rate to student needs rather than instructional method. When instructional method has been suited to the student, such adaptations are typically based on the artistry of the practitioner, rather than on a systematically formulated set of precepts that have been verified by empirical research. The purpose of this paper is to review some of the