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This page is about the life and work of Wesley. C. Becker and his contributions to Instructional Design and Direct Instruction.

Biography
Wesley Becker; (March 17, 1928- October 20, 2000) was born in Rochester, New York in 1928. He was the son of William Henry and Alice (Cole) Becker. Becker was an American Psychologist who was known for his intervention program for at-risk students in Grades K through 3. Becker was a School Psychologist, Educational Psychologist and Special Education professor at the University of Oregon and was also an Associate Dean in the Division of Counseling and Educational Psychology.

Becker was responsible for contributions to the field of education and to several fields of psychology, including clinical psychology and the lead founder of the Association for Direct Instruction, which provides training and assistance for schools in implementing effective programs and behavioral practices. Becker's model had the highest student achievement of all models in reading, math language, spelling, and science.

Becker was not only known as a scholar but also as a pioneer in the use of behavioral principles in the classroom. After retiring in 1993, Becker moved to Sun City, Arizona to be close to his family members. He was a 3 -time divorcee and a father of seven.

Education and academic career
In 1943 Becker served in the armed forces for a short period of time where afterwards, he attended Stanford University, and received a BA in 1951. In 1953 he obtained his Masters of Arts at Stanford University and In 1955, he obtained a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and Statistics. Becker completed both his undergraduate and graduate work in 2 years graduating as Phi Beta Kappa and became an instructor at the University of Illinois.

 Post-Doctoral Work 

In 1964, Becker became a professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Illinois. In 1967 he was Professor of Psychology with an appointment in the Bureau of Educational Research. In 1968, he became director of the Bereiter-Engelmann program and in 1969 he became the director of the Engelmann-Becker Follow Through model at the University of Illinois. In 1980, Becker became the senior founder of the Association for Direct Instruction.

Timeline of Career

1955-1956 Becker was the Instructor at the University of Illinois, Urbana.

1956-1960 Becker was an assistant professor at the University of Illinois.

1960 -1963 Becker was an associate professor at the University of Illinois.

1963 Becker was a professor at the University of Illinois.

1964 Becker as a professor of clinical psychology at the university of Illinois.

1967 Becker was a professor of psychology in the Bureau of Educational Research.

1968 Becker was a consultant in the United States Office of Education and the director of Bereiter-Engelmann program.

1969 Becker was the director of the Engelmann-Becker Follow Through Model, University of Illinois.

1970 Becker was a Professor, in U. Oregon, Eugene.

1978 Becker was an associate dean of College Education in U. Oregon.

1978 Becker was the director of the Oregon Research Institute.

1980 Becker became the Senior founder of the Association for Direct Instruction

Research
Becker was initially influenced by Sidney Bijou who was a follower of B.F. Skinner.  Many considered Bijou as the  founder of applied behavior analysis, i.e., the application of behavioral theory to pressing social problems, but Becker created his own path by moving his research away from complex studies of perceptions and understandings of human perceptions to the systematic study of only observable behavior.

 Project Follow Through 

Project Follow Through was one of the largest educational experiments conducted in the U.S.  Research began in 1968 with a group of at-risk children from grades kindergarten to grade 3. The project was designed to research and find the best way to teach the selected group of students. In 1977 an evaluation of the project occurred and the results had found that students who received Direct Instruction had significantly higher academic achievement than students in any of the other programs. They also had higher self esteem and self-confidence.

Behavior Modification

With B.F. Skinner as his model, Becker's theory and research supports classroom management where he helped to design strategies for teachers in assisting children to behave better. Becker recognized that the first step toward better classroom management is a teacher's recognition of the connection between children's behavior, teacher's behavior, and learning. He believed that when teachers effectively use the operant conditioning system by rewarding or punishing behaviors, the behavior can be changed.

His behavior modification methods included:

(1) Rewarding appropriate behavior and withdrawing rewards following inappropriate behavior

(2) Strengthening the rewards if the first method does not work.

(3) Punishing inappropriate behavior while rewarding appropriate behavior if the above methods fail.

Becker on education
Through the development of the Direct Instruction Project Wesley believed that the best way to increase achievement of students was to provide them with a step by step guide that contains clear and explicit instructions especially in the areas of Mathematics and Reading. Wesley made sure that this approach was implemented in 20 sites in the U.S and that students were assessed regularly and given guided instructions. His early studies contained applications in the factor analysis and multivariate methods studying how parents perceive children’s behavior. Becker's goal was to make teachers more effective in their work or make parents more effective teachers using principles of functional assessment.

Death
On October 29th 2000, Dr. Wesley Becker died of circulation problems while undergoing medical observations. He was 73 years old.

Award Fund
In June 2002, The Association for Direct Instruction established an award fund in the memory of Wesley C. Becker.

Major books
Becker wrote many books and was best known for his four textbooks on Educational Psychology, and the milestone book for parents - Parents are Teachers. He wrote more than 100 professional articles, and was a co-author of what is currently the preferred series for teaching problem readers in grade 4 thru 12 (SRA's Corrective Reading series).


 * Wesley, B. (1986). An Empirical Basis For Change in Educational Selections on Behavioral Psychology for Teachers.
 * Wesley, B. (1986). Applied Psychology For Teachers: A Behavioral Cognitive Approach. Science Research Associates
 * Wesley, B. (1970). How to Use Contingency Contracting in the Classroom. Research Press (IL)
 * Wesley, B. (1971). Parents Are Teachers: A child Management Program. Research Press
 * Wesley, B. (1975). Teaching 2: Cognitive Learning and Instruction. Science Research Associates