FADING OF PROMPTS IN LEARNING SEQUENCES

Abstract

Whenever a fixed series of steps must be learned, the question arises as to the order in which they should be brought to mastery and any prompts used in the lesson withdrawn. Reinforcement theorists argue that responses in a chain should be mastered in retrogressive order, but experiments have not supported this argument. Furthermore the argument ignores the differential practice of responses which retrogressive chaining entails.

It is proposed that the differing extent to which responses should be practised is indicated by the classical serial position effect. Fading of prompts should proceed from the middle to the ends of the chain. For retention of series of complex instructions, this fading sequence is superior (in terms of re‐learning errors) to retrogressive fading.