Educational Psychology / Unit 4 EDP 0332 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Task Analysis
The idea
Task analysis breaks a skill into the smaller skills it depends on and arranges them in a learning hierarchy, a sequence in which each skill is a prerequisite for the next, as Gagné described. Start with the target skill and ask what a learner must already be able to do to perform it; then ask the same of each of those skills, working down until you reach skills the learners have mastered. Teaching then runs back up the hierarchy.
In practice
Worked example: long division requires estimating, multiplying and subtracting, which in turn require multiplication facts. A student missing the facts starts there.
Where people slip
Sequencing matters as much as the list: teaching a skill before its prerequisite produces errors that look like low ability. And a prerequisite that is only half learned still blocks progress, because it must be automatic before the next step can build on it.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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