Psychological Principles in System Development

The book's spine is the argument that system design—the process of integrating people and machines into operational systems—must incorporate psychological principles from the beginning, not as an afterthought. Gagné and his contributors reject the assumption that human operators are merely add-ons to technological systems. As the volume's historian notes, system design begins with a state of purpose and proceeds through planning, design, development, implementation, and testing stages, with psychology contributing to each [citation:4]. The book covers human functions in systems, men and computers, human capabilities and limitations, task analysis, personnel selection, training concepts, team functions, and proficiency measurement [citation:2]. The SHOCKACTION armor crewman training project, which reduced training from eight weeks to six while improving proficiency, exemplifies the approach in practice [citation:4].

The volume includes fourteen chapters by leading researchers. John L. Kennedy opens with 'Psychology and system development,' followed by Gagné's chapter on 'Human functions in systems' [citation:2]. Ward Edwards covers 'Men and computers,' while Wulfeck and Zeitlin address 'Human capabilities and limitations' [citation:2]. J.S. Kidd writes on 'Human tasks and equipment design,' and Robert B. Miller covers 'Task description and analysis' [citation:2]. Paul Horst addresses 'The logic of personnel selection and classification' [citation:2]. Meredith P. Crawford covers 'Concepts of training,' and William C. Biel writes on 'Training programs and devices' [citation:2]. Boguslaw and Porter cover 'Team functions and training,' Glaser and Klaus write on 'Proficiency measurement,' and Davis and Behan address 'Evaluating system performance in simulated environments' [citation:2]. John L. Finan concludes with 'The system concept as a principle of methodological decision' [citation:2].

Reviews were generally positive about the book's contribution while noting limitations. A review in Educational and Psychological Measurement praised the papers as 'well co-ordinated to form a unified, logical presentation' that shows psychology can make a considerable contribution to system design [citation:3]. The reviewer singled out Wulfeck and Zeitlin's chapter on psychophysics as making the book valuable for reference [citation:3]. H. Wallace Sinaiko, reviewing for Contemporary Psychology, noted that the book puts most emphasis on 'the technology of training' and 'the performance of groups,' but identified a 'major weakness': the 'uniform absence of experimental data' and insufficient quantitative material [citation:9]. Sinaiko also found some material not treated in enough depth [citation:9]. A 1964 review in Ergonomics found Crawford's discussion of training principles valuable but suggested he was 'rather too polite to the academic psychologists' about the transfer from learning theory to training design .

This 1962 volume predates The Conditions of Learning (1965) and Principles of Instructional Design (1974), but it establishes themes Gagné would develop throughout his career. The SHOCKACTION project, discussed in two chapters, demonstrated that systematic task analysis and training design could produce superior results in less time—an empirical vindication of the systems approach [citation:4]. The chapter on task analysis by Robert B. Miller, and the emphasis on training objectives and proficiency measurement, anticipate Gagné's later focus on identifying learning outcomes and designing instruction to match them. The volume's contributors, including Robert Glaser, would become central figures in the instructional design movement. The book thus documents the military-funded research context from which Gagné's conditions-based theory emerged, showing that his later work was not developed in academic isolation but in response to practical problems of training and system performance.

SHOCKACTION was a system development project undertaken in the late 1950s at Fort Knox, Kentucky, to revise the course of instruction for armor crewman training for the Army's main battle tank [citation:4]. The existing course was not training armor crewmen to required proficiency levels, so the Army invested research and development funds to revamp the training [citation:4]. The project is discussed in two chapters—Meredith Crawford's 'Concepts of Training' and John Finan's 'The System Concept and Methodological Decision'—because the newly developed course was not only superior to the old course but also shorter, reducing training from eight weeks to six [citation:4]. SHOCKACTION illustrates the book's central argument: applying psychological principles to system design yields measurable improvements in both effectiveness and efficiency. It also demonstrates the military context in which much early instructional systems research was conducted.

The most persistent misconception treats the book as a general textbook on system engineering or a theoretical treatise on human factors. It is neither. Psychological Principles in System Development is an edited collection of papers documenting the specific contributions psychology can make to the design of complex man-machine systems, with a deliberate emphasis on training and team performance [citation:9]. A second misconception assumes the book is outdated because its examples are military. While the military context is prominent, the principles—task analysis, objective specification, proficiency measurement, team training—remain foundational to modern instructional design and human-systems integration. A third misreading assumes Gagné is the sole author; he is the editor, and the volume's value lies in the collective expertise of contributors like Robert Glaser, Meredith Crawford, and Ward Edwards, each addressing a distinct component of the system development problem.