Machine learning obstacles in the USSR in the 1960s: university science between transfer and coordination

The article discusses the history of coordination of university research and development in the Soviet Union in the 1960s, focusing on the case study of the development and implementation of machine pedagogy at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. The coordination of the work of designers of teaching machines and theorists of machine pedagogy was led by the section of teaching automata of the Scientific Council for the Complex Problem of “Cybernetics” at the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. This section united university scientists, design students, and academic psychologists to create a network that was highly sensitive to scaling technology, making it stand out against the background of programmed learning enthusiasts. The article highlights the history of technology transfer and examines the complications that arose during its uncritical adaptation to the realities of Soviet higher polytechnic education. The university laboratories of MEI, MSU and LSU undertook a project to create learning machines and develop a psychological and pedagogical justification for their use in higher education. Cybernetically oriented Soviet psychologists, such as N. I. Zhinkin and L. N. Landa, preferred the American approach, hiding its neo-behaviorist basis behind the cybernetic terminology, which provoked resistance from psychologist A. N. Leontiev. He connected the pedagogical psychologists N. Ya. Galperin and N. F. Talyzina from MSU to the project. Based on the results of the experiment on introducing machines into the education process at MEI, the emphasis was placed on further algorithmization of testing methods. Galperin and Talyzina objected to this decision and left the project. The inability of network participants to reach consensus demonstrates the defects in scientific and technical coordination under Late Socialism and is one of the reasons why machines for programmed learning did not develop in the USSR.