Programmed learning (or programmed instruction) is a research-based system which helps learners work successfully. The method is guided by research done by a variety of applied psychologists and educators.

The learning material is in a kind of textbook or teaching machine or computer. The medium presents the material in a logical and tested sequence. The text is in small steps or larger chunks. After each step, learners are given a question to test their comprehension. Then immediately the correct answer is shown. This means the learner at all stages makes responses, and is given immediate knowledge of results.

Anticipating programmed learning, Edward L. Thorndike wrote in 1912:

If, by a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book could be so arranged that only to him who had done what was directed on page one would page two become visible, and so on, much that now requires personal instruction could be managed by print.

Thorndike, however, did nothing with his idea. The first such system was devised by Sidney L. Pressey in 1926. "The first... [teaching machine] was developed by Sidney L. Pressey... While originally developed as a self-scoring machine... [it] demonstrated its ability to actually teach."