Another way of organising material , which combines the principles of programmed learning with those of information theory, is the "algorithm “ . This procedure was introduced by Russian psychologists and consists of an instruction followed by “ if-than”statements. This is also a helpful way presenting complex arguments in a diagrammatic form. An example is given in the book Teaching Machines and Programmed instruction.,where a diagram providing a succession of binary choices is used as a guide for identifying faults in a programme . An algorithm is really an exact recipe which provides a correct and orderly sequence of instructions for answering questions or solving problems,
The material to be learned should be graded in difficulty so that the student makes few mistakes as he proceeds.
Confidence is a most important factor in learning, and the teacher should do all in his power to give the student confidence in his abilityto master the material presented in the course. Initial failure is Initial failure is likely to deter the student and make it more difficult for him to learn.it is thus helpful to build up confidence through success at the very beginning. This provides reinforcement and encouragement and makes the student more eager to proceed with the next part of the course.To maximise success and minimise failure, fairly wide tolerance levels should be used in the early stages ot the course. A good example of this is given in a study by Jamienon," who produced a programme for training sewing machinists, When the traditional method of training was used older women tended to drop out before the was completed. The main reason for this was that accuracy required at the very beginning of the training was to stringent that they were continually failing to reach the set standards and hence did not consider themselves suitable job. Jamieson's programme allowed the beginner to sew anywhere along a wide channel, and as her confidence was built up she sewed along narrower tracks Mic was a perfectly straight line. Using this method of training, all the older people successfully mastered the technique and stayed on to continue the job. Similar results have been obtained in the teaching of statistics. where symbols have been introduced very gradually. to build up the student's confidence before introducing more difficult material. Once the student feels happy about the symbols and his ability to understand and learning process can be speeded with confidence.