Sherman H Williford

Concept of Leadership Programmed Sherman H Williford

Publisher Marketing: The purpose of this thesis is to determine if there is duplication of certain leadership instruction presented to Infantry Officer Basic Course students and if programmed instruction can be used to overcome the defect. Programmed instruction could be used as a brush up or review for those students entering the Infantry Officer Basic Course in lieu of some formal platform instruction. Thus saving instructional time and reducing or eliminating the duplication of instruction defect. Following this line of reasoning, the first task was to define the concept of leadership as taught by the leadership and Command Committee, U. S. Army Infantry School and Reserve Officer Training Corps units. Investigation revealed that both institutions' definition of the concept/of leadership was the same. The next task was to analyze the concept of leadership instruction presented to Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets and to Infantry Officer Basic Course students at the U. S. Army Infantry School to determine if an overlap existed. The final task was to determine if a self-instructional programmed lesson could be written that would teach or review the basic concept of leadership to Infantry officer Basic Course students most of whom are Reserve Officer Training Corps graduates and write the self-instructional programmed unit. Investigation proved that there is an extensive overlap in the concept of leadership instruction in the Reserve Officer Training Corps Course and Infantry Officer Basic Course. Because other subjects closely related to leadership--management, logic, human behavior--had been successfully programmed, it was determined that the concept of leadership could be taught through the use of programmed instruction media. The concept of leadership was programmed in a constructed response, linear format containing 129 frames.