Francis Mechner

Francis Mechner is an American research psychologist best known for having developed and introduced (in 1959) a formal symbolic language[1][2][3] for the codification and notation of behavioral contingencies that he has applied to various fields including economics, education, environmental impact, business management, biology, clinical applications, law, and the analysis of macroeconomic and financial phenomena.[4][5][6][7] Mechner is also known for a variety of contributions in instructional technology and in basic research on learning.

Relationship with Columbia University

Mechner received his PhD in 1957 at the Columbia University Department of Psychology under Professors F. S. Keller and William N. Schoenfeld.[8][9] As a member of the Department’s teaching faculty from 1955 to 1960 he developed and taught a novel type of laboratory course in experimental psychology in which the students learned to design and conduct experiments on learning, perception, and concept formation, and to analyze and interpret data. He taught two sections of that course—one for Columbia Teachers’ college graduate students and one for Columbia graduate and undergraduate students.

Research and applied work

Mechner continued to conduct basic and applied research in the fields of learning and educational technology.[10][11][12][13][14][15] In 1957 he built the first computerized behavior research laboratory at Schering Corporation in which he conducted psychopharmacology and basic research with rats, pigeons, monkeys, and humans.[16][17][18] In 1960 he introduced a new instructional technology[19][20] in conjunction with his founding of Basic Systems, Inc. with business partner David Padwa, a company they sold to Xerox Corporation in 1965. Key aspects of this technology are the specification of learning objectives at the outset of the development process, analysis of the subject matter in terms of its component skills and concepts, the systematic cumulative sequencing of these, active response by the learner, and cycles of testing and revision of the material on the intended target population.[21][22][23][24][25][26]

Mechner applied this technology first to the development of programmed texts for elementary school and high school courses in science and mathematics, nursing and medical education, for the training of industry personnel, and in 1962 for interpersonal skill training via the audio-lingual programs “Effective Listening” and “Professional Selling Skills.” The latter, when marketed by Xerox Corporation and later by Learning International, Inc., became the most widely used training system of all time, and its multiple descendants are still being marketed today. Another Basic Systems-Xerox program that applies this technology and is still being sold today is “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess.”

In 1963, under a contract with the office of Governor Peabody of Massachusetts, Dr. Mechner developed the design for a residential training center for disadvantaged youths, and in 1965 the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity awarded his company Basic Systems, Inc. a contract for establishing and operating such a Job Corps Training Center in Huntington, West Virginia. The Job Corps Training Centers that were subsequently established throughout the United States under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 were based in part on that design.

From 1960 through 1978 Mechner applied his technology to the creation of large-scale training systems and manpower development programs for governmental agencies in the United States and Brazil.[27][28][29] In 1970 he worked with the Carnegie Corporation’s Children’s Television Workshop project in the original design of Sesame Street. As a consultant to UNESCO from 1963 to 1965 he introduced his technology for the modernization of secondary school physics teaching in South America and chemistry teaching in Asia. In 1967 he founded Media Medica, Inc. through which he introduced the use of instructional materials for patient education. Through his company Universal Education Corporation, which he founded in 1968, he developed and installed innovative statewide early childhood development and educational daycare programs for Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nebraska, and Alabama. In 1971, he testified on the importance of early childhood development and educational day care before the Congressional Committee on Education and Labor regarding the Mondale-Brademas Comprehensive Child Development Act of 1971, which was passed by Congress and then vetoed by President Nixon.[30]

In 1968 he founded the Paideia School, an innovative K–12 independent school that he operated until 1973 in Armonk, NY.[31] This school provided the original model for the Paideia Personalized Education approach on which the Mechner Foundation's Queens Paideia School in Long Island City, NY, is based.[32][33] From 1975 to 1977, he developed a computerized information storage and retrieval system and search engine for the Brazilian Government agency Instituto de Pesquisas Technologicas.

Since 1960 Mechner has funded his research work through businesses that he founded and built.[34] Among these, in addition to those described above, were Chyron Corporation with engineer Eugene Leonard (1967), best known for its digital graphics generators widely used in the broadcast industry; TeleSession Corporation (1970); EDUTEC, S.A. in Brazil (1973); General Clutch Corp. with physicist Martin Waine (1980); TorqMaster, Inc. also with Martin Waine (1996); and Pragma Securities, LLC (2002), with his son David Mechner. This business experience also provided Mechner with some of the insights on which his recent behavioral contingency analysis of economic and financial phenomena is based.

The Mechner Foundation

Mechner has published numerous technical papers and articles and has lectured and taught courses at dozens of national and international conferences and universities.[35][36] As President of the Mechner Foundation, he sponsored collaborative research projects in the field of behavioral science with several major universities[37] and funded several socially valuable projects in other fields, including the Blacksmith Institute and the Queens Paideia School. The Mechner Foundation has also carried out an extensive research program of its own.[38] Mechner has been a trustee of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies since 1985.

Life

Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1931, Mechner came to the United States in 1944 after having spent three years in France and two years in Cuba. By age 19 he was an accomplished classical concert pianist, portrait painter, and USCF-rated chess master.[39][40][41] In the late 1980s he composed the soundtracks for the original versions of Karateka and Prince of Persia (video game) both developed by his son Jordan Mechner.

References

  1. ↑ Mechner, F. (1959). A notation system for the description of behavioral procedures. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2, 133-150.
  2. ↑ Mechner, F. (1961). Programming for Automated Instruction. New York: Basic Systems.
  3. ↑ Weingarten, K. & Mechner, F. (1966). A notation system for the analysis of social interaction. In T. Verhave (Ed.), Readings in the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (pp. 447-459). New York: Appleton Century Crofts.
  4. ↑ Mechner, F. (2008). Behavioral contingency analysis. Behavioural Processes, 78, 124-144.
  5. ↑ Mechner, F. (2009). Analyzing variable behavioral contingencies: Are certain complex skills homologous with locomotion? Behavioural Processes, 81, 316-321.
  6. ↑ Mechner, F. (2010). Anatomy of deception: a behavioral contingency analysis. Behavioural Processes, 84, 516-520.
  7. ↑ Mechner, F. (2011). Why behavior analysis needs a formal symbolic language for codifying behavioral contingencies. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 12, 93-104.
  8. ↑ Mechner, F. (1958). Probability relations within response sequences under ratio reinforcement. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 1: 109-21.
  9. ↑ Mechner, F. (1958). Sequential dependencies of the lengths of consecutive response runs. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 1: 229-33.
  10. ↑ Mechner, F. & Ray, R. (1959). Avoidance of time out from fixed-interval reinforcement. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 2: 261.
  11. ↑ Mechner, F. (1962). Effects of deprivation upon counting and timing in rats. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 5: 463-66.
  12. ↑ Mechner, F. (1994). The revealed operant: A way to study the characteristics of individual occurrences of operant responses. In S.S. Glenn (Ed.), Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies Monograph Series: Progress in Behavioral Studes, Monograph #3. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies.
  13. ↑ Mechner, F., Guevrekian, L., & Mechner, V. (1963). A fixed interval schedule in which the interval is initiated by a response. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 6: 323-30.
  14. ↑ Mechner, F. (1966). Behavioral technology and social change. In Proceedings of the American Management Association. New York: American Management Association.
  15. ↑ Mechner, F., Hyten, C., Field, D. P., Madden, G. (1997). Using revealed operants to study the structure and properties of human operant behavior, Psychological Record, 47: 45-68.
  16. ↑ Mechner, F., Snapper, A. G., & Ray, R. (1961). Behavioral effects of methamphetamine and methylphenidate in rat and man. In E. Rothlin (Ed.), Neuro-Psychopharmacology Vol. 2 (pp. 167-71). Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishing Company.
  17. ↑ Mechner, F. (1963). Science education and behavioral technology. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Teaching Machines and Programmed Learning II (pp. 441-508). 1965. Washington, DC: National Education Association.
  18. ↑ Mechner, F. & Latranyi, M. (1963). Behavioral effects of caffeine, methamphetamine, and methylphenidate in the rat. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 6: 331-42.
  19. ↑ Mechner, F. (1961). Behavioral contingencies. In J. G. Holland, Solomon, C., Doran, J., & Frezza, D. A. (Eds.). The Analysis of Behavior in Planning Instruction (pp. 50-62). New York: Addison-Wesley, 1976.
  20. ↑ Cook, D. A. & Mechner, F. (1962). Fundamentals of programmed instruction. Columbia Engineering Quarterly [New York] 15(3): 18-21.
  21. ↑ Mechner, F. (1963). Science education and behavioral technology. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Teaching Machines and Programmed Learning II (pp. 441-508). Washington, DC: National Education Association, 1965.
  22. ↑ Mechner, F. (1965). Some recent advances in behavioral technology. Presented at the March 1965 American Hospital Association Conference on Programmed Instruction. New York: Basic Systems, Inc.
  23. ↑ Mechner, F. (1965). Learning by doing through programmed instruction. American Journal of Nursing 65(5): 18-29.
  24. ↑ Mechner, F. (1965). Behavioral technology and the development of medical education programs. In J. P. Lysaught (Ed.) Programmed instruction in medical education, 67-76. Rochester Clearing House. Rochester NY: University of Rochester.
  25. ↑ Mechner, F. (1967). Behavioral analysis and instructional sequencing. In P. C. Lange (Ed.), Programmed Instruction: The sixty-Sixth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (pp. 81-103). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  26. ↑ Dills, C. R. & Romiszowski, A. J. (1997). Instructional development paradigms, Educational Technology Publications, Inc., p. 233. Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632.
  27. ↑ Mechner, F. & Cook, D.A. (1964). Behavioral technology and manpower development. Publication of the Directorate of Scientific Affairs. Paris, France: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
  28. ↑ Mechner, F. (1978). Engineering supervisory job-performance change. Training 15(10): 65-70.
  29. ↑ Mechner, F. (1981). A self-instructional course in behavioral analysis of interpersonal interaction skills (coaching, counseling, and leadership) and equipment maintenance skills. Arlington, VA: U.S. Army Research Institute Publication.
  30. ↑ Mechner, F. (1971). Testimony on early childhood development before the Congressional Committee on Education and Labor. Congressional Record of the 91st U.S. Congress.
  31. ↑ Mechner, F. (1977). The "problem" of the schools. Educational Technology, 17(1): 45-7.
  32. ↑ Mechner, F. (2012). History and implications of the Paideia Personalized Education (PPE) system. http://mechnerfoundation.org/newsite/downloads.html
  33. ↑ http://www.queenspaideiaschool.org/ Queens Paideia School Web site.
  34. ↑ Mechner, F. (1989). Present certainty equivalents and weighted scenario valuations. Journal of Business Venturing 4: 85-92.
  35. ↑ http://www.abainternational.org/Events/oslo2009/downloads/InvitedEvents.pdf
  36. ↑ Mechner, F. (2012). Remarks regarding Charles Catania's 1981 discussion article "The Flight from Experimental Analysis". European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 13, 227-230.
  37. ↑ Reed, P. & Morgan, T. A. (2006). Resurgence of response sequences during extinction in rats shows a primacy effect. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 86(3): 307-15 (November).
  38. ↑ Mechner, F. & Jones, L. (2011). Effects of sequential aspects of learning history. Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis, 37, 109-138.
  39. ↑ New York Times
  40. ↑ Mechner, F. (2008b). An invitation to behavior analysts: Review of In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind by Eric R. Kandel. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 90: 235-48.
  41. ↑ Mechner, F. (2010b). Chess as a behavioral model for cognitive skill research: Review of Blindfold Chess by Eliot Hearst and John Knott. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 94, 373-386.

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