The “Singapore method” was first developed by a team of teachers in Singapore in the 1980s, who were given the task of creating high-quality teaching materials by the ministry of education. They studied the latest behavioural science research as well as travelled to schools in other countries, including Canada and Japan, to compare the effectiveness of different teaching methods. Aiming to move away from simple rote-learning and to focus instead on teaching children how to problem solve, the textbooks the group produced were influenced by educational psychologists such as the American Jerome