Skin‧ner, B.F. /ˈskɪnəʳ/
(1904–90) a US psychologist (=a scientist who studies the way the human mind works) who developed the ideas of behaviourism. He did a lot of experiments, especially with animals, to see how they behaved in certain situations and how they could be trained to change their behaviour. He also invented ‘programmed learning’, a teaching method which influenced the way that languages and other subjects were taught in the 1970s, although most teachers now think that Skinner’s method was wrong.

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲