A comparison of pacing contingencies in classes using a personalized system of instruction

This study compared the effects of multiple versus single deadline contingencies on distribution of unit-mastery test taking by students in four university classes taught using the personalized system of instruction. Rate of test taking was most uniform when multiple deadlines were imposed throughout the course. When deadlines were infrequent, a scalloped pattern of test taking developed.     

Effects of imposed postfeedback delays in programmed instruction

Imposed postfeedback delays promote discrimination training; the present experiments determined whether they also improve performance in programmed instruction. In two experiments, college students completed 45 sets of Holland and Skinner's (1961) programmed text on behavior analysis in a computerized format in a three-component multiple schedule. In Experiment 1, the conditions were (a) no delay between questions, (b) a 10-s delay after each question (noncontingent delay), and (c) a 10-s delay after each question answered incorrectly (contingent delay). Noncontingent delay produced better performance than no delay and contingent delay. To determine whether performance increased in the noncontingent delay condition because subjects studied the material during delay periods, Experiment 2 tested three conditions: (a) no delay between questions, (b) a 10-s delay after each question (noncontingent delay), and (c) a 10-s delay after each question with the screen blank during the delay period. Noncontingent delay produced better performance than no delay, but there was no difference in performance between no delay and noncontingent delay with blank screen. Hence, noncontingent delay improved performance because students used delay periods to study. Furthermore, subjects preferred noncontingent delay to the other conditions, and session time increased only slightly.     

USING HIGH-PROBABILITY INSTRUCTION SEQUENCES WITH FADING TO INCREASE STUDENT COMPLIANCE DURING TRANSITIONS

Making efficient transitions from one instructional activity to another has been shown to increase academic learning time and therefore student achievement. Because compliance with teacher instructions is a prerequisite for efficient transitions, we sought to determine if high-probability (high-p) instruction sequences issued by a classroom teacher would increase student compliance and decrease latency to comply during transitions. Three children in a regular second-grade classroom participated. Each day at the beginning of morning calendar time, the teacher issued five instructions to the class as a group while compliance data were recorded for the 3 target students. Following baseline, a multielement design was used to examine the effects of the high-p instruction sequence. We then systematically faded the number of instructions included in the high-p sequence as a means of transferring stimulus control to low-probability instructions. The procedure was effective for 2 of the 3 participants, and the results were maintained at 2-and 3-week follow-up. The implications of these findings for group applications of the high-p instruction sequence in regular education classrooms are discussed.     

Developing auditory stimulus control: A note on methodology

This paper concerns the problem of teaching people with intellectual handicaps to respond reliably to spoken words and other auditory instructional stimuli. We describe how microcomputer technology can be applied to implement effective auditory stimulus control shaping methods. With hardware and software currently available, it is now possible to adapt procedures that have been previously successful in stimulus control programming with visual stimuli. We describe several techniques for programming gradual stimulus changes (e.g., stimulus fading, stimulus shaping) to promote auditory discrimination learning. Teaching studies with two individuals with severe mental retardation provide illustrative applications and data supporting the feasibility and potential utility of auditory stimulus control shaping methodology.     

EFFECTS OF INVENTED SPELLING AND DIRECT INSTRUCTION ON SPELLING PERFORMANCE OF SECOND-GRADE BOYS

Four second-grade boys, 2 rated by their classroom teacher as below average and 2 as above average in basic language skills, participated in a 16-week spelling investigation. The participants alternately received, in counterbalanced order, 5 weeks of an invented spelling approach that incorporated 15-min creative writing periods and 5 weeks of direct instruction that involved 15-min periods of guided practice on spelling word lists. At the end of 10 weeks, each condition was replicated for 3 additional weeks. Although direct instruction resulted in more targeted words spelled correctly, invented spelling resulted in more nontargeted words spelled correctly, higher preference ratings by children, and higher teacher ratings of the quality of 3 of the children's writing samples.     

Direct instruction: What it is and what it is becoming

This essay describes the principles of Direct Instruction design and delivery used to establish clear, unambiguous communication and maximize student responding. Direct Instruction research findings are summarized: achievement of low-income students in Follow Through, longitudinal results, and the effectiveness of Direct Instruction for students with handicaps. Finally, new directions for Direct Instruction, technological applications and instruction of higher-order skills, are discussed.     

EVALUATION OF A REINFORCEMENT PROCEDURE FOR ACCELERATING WORK RATE IN A SELF-PACED COURSE1

Students in a self-paced child development course were assigned to one of seven groups. One bonus point, which contributed toward the student's final grade, was given for each unit completed during a specified two-week period. In a combined baseline-reversal design, bonus points could be earned at different times for each group, and some groups had weeks without bonus points interspersed between bonus weeks. All seven groups and 78% of individual students completed units at a faster rate during bonus periods than during the balance of the semester. For the 58 students completing the course, mean units per week during bonus periods was 2.40 (SD = 1.60); for the balance of the semester mean units per week was 0.96 (SD = 0.37). Awarding bonus points for a limited period early in the term appears to be a useful procedure for increasing rates during this period in which rates are typically low. Although similar effects have been reported by others (e.g., Miller, Weaver, and Semb, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1974, 7 , 87–91), the advantage of the present procedure is that the increase in rate is accomplished by means of reinforcement for high rates rather than punishment (low grades or forced withdrawal) for low rates.     

DEVELOPING GENERALIZED BEHAVIOR-MODIFICATION SKILLS IN HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENTS WORKING WITH RETARDED CHILDREN1

Seven high-school trainees each conducted training sessions with two profoundly retarded children. Each trainee was asked to teach one child to follow the instruction “Bring ball” and the other child to follow the instructions “Sit down” and “Come here”. During baseline sessions, before the trainees had been instructed in behavior-modification techniques, no trainee successfully taught either child to follow the instructions. After differing numbers of baseline sessions, trainees were exposed to training procedures designed to teach them to teach one child to follow the instruction “Bring ball”. The training procedures consisted of videotaped modelling, rehearsal, and corrective feedback and praise. Following the training procedures, four of the seven trainees successfully taught their child to follow the instruction “Bring ball”. Further, all trainees were able to teach their other children to follow the instructions “Sit down” and “Come here”, even though they had received no modelling, rehearsal, or feedback on how to teach the children to follow these instructions. The ability of the trainees to teach new behaviors to different children indicates the development of generalized skills in behavior modification.     

FUNCTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE USE OF PROCEDURAL TIMEOUT AND AN EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVE1

Two single-subject experiments were conducted with students in special preschool classes. In Experiment I, the subject's disruptive, appropriate, and inappropriate play behaviors were measured as a function of three independent variables: reinforcement, a typical timeout procedure, and regularly paced teacher instructions. In an ABA reversal within a multiple baseline across two teachers, all three independent variables comprised the A conditions and procedural timeout was omitted in B. Experiment II examined a second subject's appropriate and inappropriate eating as a function of the same three variables. Two teachers conducted baseline and paced instruction-plus-reinforcement conditions in multiple baseline across teachers. Subsequently, one teacher performed a series of reversals and replications with various combinations of a typical timeout procedure and reinforcement mixed with paced instructions. The results of both experiments suggest that timeout did not produce response decrement in a punishment paradigm, but rather produced response increment in a negative reinforcement paradigm. These results prevailed, even though a reinforcer was operating in the environment before introducing timeout. Paced instructions (delivering instructions to the child at a set pace regardless of the child's behavior) appears to be an alternative when timeout is not effective and, in conjunction with reinforcement, was demonstrated to reduce inappropriate behavior to near zero.     

ACQUISITION AND GENERALIZATION OF COMPLIANCE WITH COMPLEX FIVE-COMPONENT INSTRUCTIONS1

A 7-yr-old bilingual boy of normal intelligence, judged by his school to be deficient in carrying out complex requests, was trained to comply with five-component instructions, e.g., “Give me/the chip/behind/the block/on blue”. Three interchangeable words or phrases were used for each component. Training proceeded in stages. First, the child was trained to identify all individual objects and actions; then to carry out requests involving only the first component, then the first two, then three, etc. On every trial, the visual setting permitted every possible response in the set. A test for generalization to nonreinforced instructions was given at each stage by giving no feedback for all instructions that included one preselected phrase. The phrase selected at each stage was one of the three that was introduced at that stage. As a further test for generalization, nonreinforced instructions were also given that included one additional component: the next to be trained (Probes Ahead). As a test for generalization across settings and instructions, several five-component instructions were presented each session in an unused classroom. These instructions used phrases, most of which were different from those being trained, and which referred to familiar classroom objects. Results showed: acquisition occurred for each stage of training, including the full five-component instruction; almost complete generalization of responding occurred to the subset of nonreinforced instructions; little or no generalization occurred to the Probes Ahead, where an additional untrained component was included; and little or no generalization was seen to the five-component classroom instructions, until training began on the five-component instructions in the training sessions. Performance was also examined for each component. Results showed that when a new component was introduced, correct performance to previously trained components declined, and was little if any superior to performance on the new component. In summary, transfer was found to untrained sentences of the same form as those being trained, even in another setting, where most of the components were different; but poor transfer was found to more complex sentences, and performance declined for previously trained components during training of a more complex sentence. Some features of the training procedure that may have affected the degree and form of transfer were discussed: the necessity for prior training in an appropriate response to the component phrases, the importance of intermixing of reinforced and nonreinforced trials, and the effects of the abruptness with which more complex sentence forms were introduced.