Gilbert’s “Mathetics”- Teaching learners new concepts, principles, facts and skills

Source: A Dialog with Thomas Gilbert

In the great cult of behavior, the appeal is to control or affect behavior in some way. There is little or no technology of ends and purposes. Indeed, behavior itself is viewed as an end rather than a means to an end. It sees its enemy as people, because it puts great store on how people behave regardless of what they actually accomplish. To be able to shape behavior is considered the highest virtue.

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Source: Human Competence Revisited: 40 Years of Impact

In May 2018 the Association for Behavior Analysis International hosted an invited symposium titled “Human Competence Revisited: 40 Years of Impact.” This special selection of presentations, highlighted the foundational influence of Thomas Gilbert’s book titled Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance on recent technological advancements in performance improvement, instructional design, and behavioral systems applications. Gilbert worked in both laboratory and applied settings. His work is notable for its breadth and provides a coherent and practical perspective on human behavior in organizations.

Gilbert emphasized observation of behavior in context causally related to accomplishments, supplemented by interviews and verbal reports, to discover variables in the environment that enable or impede exemplary performance to then focus on changing these to improve accomplishments. These factors, not the individuals’ lack of knowledge or skill, were regarded as the barriers to worthy performance. Gilbert classified important and manageable factors affecting performance in a 2 × 3 matrix that he called his Behavior Engineering Model (BEM). BEM identifies six variables necessary to improve human performance: information, resources, incentives, knowledge, capacity, and motives.

Performance Improvement: Tom Gilbert replaced what he called “the cult of behavior” with a focus on valuable accomplishments produced by behavior, a major contribution that launched a seismic shift for those who followed. This shift has been challenging, not only for applied behaviorists, but also for ordinary people. Many are more accustomed to observing and discussing behavior, whether precisely or not, than identifying the valuable accomplishments produced by that behavior, especially when the accomplishments are less tangible than deliverables or widgets, for example, decisions, relationships, or recommendations. Another of Gilbert’s major contributions, BEM, extended the variables influencing behavior by incorporating physical and social elements of the work environment, entering repertoires needed to be effective, variations in reinforcement values, and other factors into the analysis of contingencies of reinforcement. These variables are seldom relevant in research with food-deprived laboratory animals in simplified experimental chambers.

Instructional Design: Although only addressed in one chapter in Human Competence, Tom Gilbert wrote extensively about his method for teaching learners new concepts, principles, facts and skills, which he called mathetics. Mathetics included a generic instructional delivery procedure with three phases: (a) demonstrating skills, concepts, and principles to learners; (b) guiding learners as they practice; and (c) testing students to see if they have achieved mastery. Mathetics also incorporated procedures for designing instructional materials, such as how to identify and organize stimuli and responses from instructional goals, and how to incorporate behavioral procedures such as shaping and back chaining during instruction (Gilbert, 1962a, 1962b).

Behavioral Systems Applications: Gilbert’s BEM and vantage points provide a strong foundation for behavioral systems engineering to establish and maintain adherence to work routines within complex organizations. Two challenges can face managers in complex behavioral systems. First, teams of employee need to follow well established procedures to achieve milestones. Second, employees encounter anomalies not addressed in instructions. During these crises, teams must stop following standard procedures, assess changing conditions and adapt their behavior to the unexpected events in order to avert catastrophe. Behavioral systems engineering increasingly integrates human behavior with automated systems to adapt complex processes to changing contexts. Thus management of human behavior is one factor in a highly engineered system that can be designed to respond to both challenges (maintain routines, adjust to crises). Gilbert’s focus on information, instrumentation and instruction as key elements of effective behavior management systems preceded the technological developments of recent decades and seems prescient of the important role automation has assumed in behavior control.

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RIP Thomas F. Gilbert (January 3, 1927 – September 27, 1995)

Books by Tom Gilbert: