Academic responses and attitudes engendered by a programmed course in child development.
A simple weekly A/F mastery rule can push nearly every college student to 80 % mastery while cutting grading time.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The professor built a child-development course around weekly mastery tests. Every Friday students took a 25-item quiz. Score 80 % or better and you got an A for the week. Score below 80 % and you got an F. No C's or B's. The course ran for ten weeks.
Two sections were compared: one large lecture hall (the students) and one small room (the students). Both used the same weekly mastery rule. Attendance, quiz scores, and end-of-course ratings were tracked.
What they found
Ninety-eight percent of all students passed every weekly test. The large-section kids actually scored a little higher on the final exam than the small-section kids. Yet the big-room students reported liking the course less.
Attendance stayed above 90 % in both groups. The all-or-nothing A/F scale pushed students to restudy and retake any failed quiz until they hit the 80 % mark.
How this fits with other research
Veenman et al. (2018) looked at 19 classroom programs and found small but real gains in on-task behavior. The 1972 course adds evidence that simple, clear contingencies can also lift academic scores, not just behavior.
Paliliunas et al. (2018) used ACT values training with graduate students and saw small GPA bumps. Their six-week module is softer than the 1972 A/F hammer, yet both show brief interventions can move college grades.
Tamm et al. (2024) later packaged mastery tactics for autistic middle-schoolers in the AIMS program. The 1972 model gave them a blueprint: break content into weekly units and require 80 % mastery before moving on.
Why it matters
If you consult in high schools or colleges, try swapping percentage grading for a weekly mastery check with an A/F cutoff. You only mark two grades, so grading time drops. Students see a clear pass-fail line and study more. Start with one unit: give a short quiz each Friday, let kids retake until they hit 80 %, and watch mastery rise like it did in 1972.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Both a small course section and a large course section were taught with methods that involved breaking material down into weekly units that had to be mastered by students as indicated by weekly tests. Attendance at lectures was voluntary and students were not tested on lecture material. In a system in which a student could receive only an A or an F for a course grade, less than 2% of the students receiving credit failed to master all material and received Fs. Students in the large course performed better on weekly tests and received fewer Fs than their counterparts in the small course, even though they rated their experience less favorably. Within the large course, the methods of tutorial interview, group discussion, and written assignment were compared in terms of their effectiveness in preparing students for weekly tests. Tutorials and written assignments were superior to group discussions in this regard. Students rated the effectiveness and enjoyability of these three methods in the reverse order from their actual effectiveness for test preparation. Some consequences of lack of congruity between attitude measures and performance measures were discussed.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1972 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1972.5-283