The use of performance criteria for determining "mastery" in discrete-trial instruction: A call for research

The performance criterion (also known as the mastery criterion) is the operationalized performance standard that behavior must reach before instruction ceases, changes, or becomes focused on other goals, such as stimulus generalization and response maintenance. Although performance criteria are widely used in skill-acquisition research and practice, there has been little experimental research on the topic. Thus, we provide a review of relevant research and offer suggestions for future research based on the different performance-criterion components.