Concerned with understanding and improving human performance, he is known for developing a framework for preparing learning objectives, and criterion referenced instruction (CRI), as well as addressing areas of goal orientation, student evaluation, student motivation, classroom environment, educational change, performance technology, and instructional design.

To add insult to injury, in his time, being left-handed was considered a heinous act and often resulted in a sharp rap on the knuckles.

He likened his life as the ball and the different experiences in his lives as the pins of machine that would bump and jostle him eventually to his current research in the Instructional Design field.

[5] Mager is credited with revolutionizing the performance improvement industry with his groundbreaking work, the Criterion Referenced Instruction (CRI) framework.

Over the years, Mager had also been an accomplished unicyclist, banjo player, ventriloquist, crime novelist, and tap dancer.

Further experiments and research on this subject by Mager and his colleagues led to the concept of learner-control as a method which when introduced to technology-assisted instruction was found to improve learning performance.

It so revolutionized instructional methods in schools that a bill was passed in California that required teachers to describe what they wanted their students to achieve (i.e., behavioral outcomes) by writing these as objectives (the Stull Act, 1972).

[12] Mager found that establishing objectives could easily be misused, and went further to formulate five steps that would clearly guide the process of defining solid and measurable outcomes.

The origins of Instructional Design dated back as early as World War II with the need for creating training programs.

Consequently, in his book, Mager speaks of the importance of knowing precisely what is needed to be achieved before embarking on any instructional design process.

[15] This instructional framework is designed in such a way that students are expected to gain mastery in the specific modules by evaluating themselves using assessment tools built into the program.

Robert F. Mager is the author of over 10 books which have been translated into at least 17 languages and sold over four million copies worldwide[17] in the past five decades.