Mastery learning is an instructional strategy and educational philosophy that emphasizes the importance of students achieving a high level of competence (e.g., 90% accuracy) in prerequisite knowledge before moving on to new material. This approach involves providing students with individualized support and repeated opportunities to demonstrate mastery through assessments. If a student does not initially achieve mastery, they receive additional instruction and support until they do. Mastery learning is based on the idea that all students can learn effectively with appropriate instruction and sufficient time, and it contrasts with traditional teaching methods that often focus on covering a set amount of material within a fixed timeframe, regardless of individual student needs.
Definition Mastery learning (or, as it was initially called, "learning for mastery"; also known as "mastery-based learning") is an instructional strategy and educational philosophy, first formally proposed by Benjamin Bloom in 1968. Mastery learning maintains that students must achieve a level of mastery (e.g., 90% on a knowledge test) in prerequisite knowledge before moving forward to learn subsequent information. If a student does not achieve mastery on the test, they are given additional support in learning and reviewing the information and then tested again. This cycle continues until the learner accomplishes mastery, and they may then move on to the next stage. In a self-paced online learning environment, students study the material and take assessments. If they make mistakes, the system provides insightful explanations and directs them to revisit the relevant sections. They then answer different questions on the same material, and this cycle repeats until they reach the established mastery threshold. Only then can they move on to subsequent learning modules, assessments, or certifications.
Mastery-based learning methods emphasize that instruction should be tailored to the individual time needed for each student to master the same content. This is very much in contrast with classic models of teaching that focus on varying student abilities and allocation of equal time and instructions irrespective of the students' unique needs. Mastery learning shifts the perspective, attributing student challenges to instructional methods rather than inherent abilities. This underscores the importance of individualized teacher-student interactions over group evaluations. Therefore, the task in mastery learning is to ensure sufficient time and employ effective instructional strategies so that all students can achieve the same level of learning. This learner-centered approach also aligns with andragogy principles as well, recognizing that adult learners benefit from tailored instruction and assessments that are inclusive and supportive, fostering a fair and non-oppressive learning experience.
Since its conception, mastery learning has empirically been demonstrated to be effective in improving education outcomes in a variety of settings. Its effectiveness is influenced by the subject being taught, whether testing is designed locally or nationally, course pace and the amount of feedback provided to students. Research has identified an average effect size of 0.59, which demonstrates moderate to substantial improvements in academic performance with Mastery Learning. Higher mastery thresholds have been associated with greater improvements in examination performance, and the use of targeted feedback has been shown to address learning gaps and misconceptions effectively. Additionally, since the model uses elements such as autonomy and competence, which are thought to enhance student motivation and engagement, this is said to be another reason for the potential success of the model in specific circumstances.
Motivation
The motivation for mastery learning comes from trying to reduce achievement gaps for students in average school classrooms. During the 1960s John B. Carroll and Benjamin S. Bloom pointed out that, if students are normally distributed with respect to aptitude for a subject and if they are provided uniform instruction (in terms of quality and learning time), then achievement level at completion of the subject is also expected to be normally distributed. This can be illustrated as shown below:
Mastery Learning approaches propose that, if each learner were to receive optimal quality of instruction and as much learning time as they require, then a majority of students could be expected to attain mastery. This situation would be represented as follows:
In many situations educators preemptively use the normal curve for grading students. Bloom was critical of this usage, condemning it because it creates expectation by the teachers that some students will naturally be successful while others will not. Bloom defended that, if educators are effective, the distribution of achievement could and should be very different from the normal curve. Bloom proposed Mastery Learning as a way to address this. He believed that by using his approach, the majority of students (more than 90 percent) would achieve successful and rewarding learning. As an added advantage, Mastery Learning was also thought to create more positive interest and attitude towards the subject learned if compared with usual classroom methods.
Related terms Individualized instruction has some elements in common with mastery learning, although it dispenses with group activities in favor of allowing more capable or more motivated students to progress ahead of others while maximizing teacher interaction with those students who need the most assistance.
Bloom's 2 Sigma Problem is an educational phenomenon observed where the average student tutored one-to-one (using mastery learning techniques) performed two standard deviations better than students who learn via conventional instructional methods.
Competency-based learning is a framework for the assessment of learning based on predetermined competencies. It draws inspiration from mastery learning.
History In the 1920s, efforts to promote mastery in students' learning included the Winnetka Plan, by Carleton Washburne and associates, and Henry C. Morrison's experimental methods at the University of Chicago Laboratory School which emphasized individualized instruction and student-paced learning over rigid course completion. These attempts were centered around student proficiency rather than course completion which helped pave the way for modern mastery learning models. While these ideas were popular for a while, they faded due primarily to the lack of technologies that could sustain a successful implementation.
The idea of mastery learning resurfaced in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a corollary of programmed instruction, a technology invented by B.F. Skinner to improve teaching. At the core of programmed instruction was Skinner's belief that even the most complex behaviors could be taught by breaking them into smaller, manageable components, each learned sequentially with guided reinforcement.
Around that same time, John B. Carroll was working on his "Model of School Learning" - a conceptual paradigm which outlined the major factors influencing student success in school learning and indicating how these factors interacted. Carroll's model stemmed from his previous work with foreign language learning. He found that a student's aptitude for a language predicted not only the level to which they learned in a given time, but also the amount of time they required to learn to a given level. Carroll then suggests that aptitudes are actually a way to measure the amount of time required to learn a task up to a certain level (under ideal instructional conditions). As such, Carroll's model implies that, if each student is given the sufficient time they needed to learn to any particular level, then they would be expected to attain it.
Later in the 1960s Benjamin Bloom and his graduate students were researching individual differences in school learning. They observed that teachers displayed very little variation in their instructional practices and yet, there was a lot of variation in student's achievements. Bloom used Carroll's conceptual model to create his own working model of Mastery Learning. Bloom realized that, if aptitudes were predictive of the rate at which a student can learn (and not necessarily the level to which), each student can grow at their own pace resulting in a more personalized learning environment. This way, each student can reach their learning potential at their own speed.
Also in the 1960s, Fred S. Keller was collaborating with colleagues developing his own instructional methods of Mastery Learning. Keller's strategies were based on the ideas of reinforcement as seen in operant conditioning theories. Keller formally introduced his teaching method, Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) - sometimes referred to as Keller Plan), in his 1967 paper, "Engineering personalized instruction in the classroom". In this plan, Keller expands on how each student progresses at their own pace with no risk of complete failure, since they can retake the assessments until they have achieved full mastery. Keller's version of Mastery Learning led to 90% of the students tested to state that they learn more, they have more fun while learning, and they have a greater sense of accomplishment, even though they had to work harder.
From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, there was a surge of research on both Keller's and Bloom's instruction methods. Most of these studies showed that mastery learning has a positive effect on achievement, for all subjects and at all levels. Also, mastery learning brings positive affective outcomes for both students and teachers. These studies also showed that there are many variables that are either affected by mastery learning or that influence it somehow: student entry variables, curriculum, type of test, pacing, level of mastery, and time.
Despite those mostly positive research results, interest in mastery learning strategies decreased throughout the 1980s, as reflected in publication activity in professional journals and presentations at conferences. Many explanations were put forward to justify this decline, like alleged recalcitrance of the educational establishment to change, or the ineffective implementations of mastery learning methods, or the extra time demanded in setting up and maintaining a mastery learning course or even concerns that behavioristic-based models for teaching would conflict with the generally humanistic-oriented teachers and the surrounding culture.
Mastery learning strategies are best represented by Bloom's Learning For Mastery (LFM) and Keller's Personalized System of Instruction (PSI). Bloom's approach was focused in the schoolroom, whereas Keller developed his system for higher education. Both have been applied in many different contexts and have been found to be very powerful methods for increasing student performance in a wide range of activities. Despite sharing some commonalities in terms of goals, they are built on different psychological principles.
Learning For Mastery (LFM)
Variables of LFM Bloom, when first proposing his mastery learning strategy in 1968, was convinced that most students can attain a high level of learning capability if the following conditions are available: instruction is approached sensitively and systematically students are helped when and where they have learning difficulties students are given sufficient time to achieve mastery there is some clear criterion of what constitutes mastery. Many variables will influence achievement levels and learning outcomes:
Aptitude Aptitude, measured by standard aptitude tests, in this context is interpreted as "the amount of time required by the learner to attain mastery of a learning task".