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.     

THE EFFECTS OF PEER TUTORING WITH GROUP CONTINGENCIES ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF COLLEGE STUDENTS1

Improving the academic performance of college students who do not demonstrate mastery of course material is a major concern in traditional and nontraditional systems of instruction, where students may drop out, take incompletes, or continue to perform at low levels. The present study examined within-course peer tutoring as a potential solution. Twenty-one undergraduate students enrolled in a three-credit introductory course in Educational Psychology served as subjects. The class met one and a half hours each weekday for five weeks. Five students withdrew from the course and one student was placed on independent study before assignments to experimental conditions were made. The primary source materials were portions of Skinner's Technology of Teaching, plus two additional articles. The material was divided into nine equal units, each unit accompanied by study objectives. Nine one-hour essay exams were administered, one every other class day. Two review days were scheduled before a cumulative final was administered. Students could score a total of 20 points on each exam and the final. If a student scored 90% or better on an exam a score of 10 was earned. If a student scored 80% to 90%, a score of eight was awarded, and so on. A total score of 90 of 100 possible points at semester's end earned a student an “A”, 80 a “B”, and so on. The study consisted of three phases: Baseline I, Intervention, and Baseline II. Baseline I: after an initial introductory class, three lectures were presented—one for each unit. Each lecture day was followed by an exam day. Intervention: following the third exam, students were rank ordered and divided into high, medium, and low levels of performance on the basis of their raw scores on the previous three exams, and assigned to a paired or independent group. This assignment procedure resulted in three high-low pairs, three middle-middle pairs, two high-middle pairs, three low-independent students, and two middle-independent students. If, and only if, both students in a pair met a 90% mastery criterion on an exam did each receive five bonus points for the exam(s) reaching the criterion. The bonus points were used to offset points lost on the cumulative final. If both students in a pair met the 90% mastery criterion for units 4, 5, and 6, the pair received an automatic score of 10 on the cumulative final and had the two review days off. Other students who studied independently received identical payoffs if they met the same mastery criterion. The previous lecture time was used for inclass study. Baseline II: Baseline I procedures were reinstituted for the final three units. The test scores are the independent and paired students are shown in Figure 1. Compared to baseline, performance during peer tutoring improved for every student paired with a high partner, and not for those students who studied independently. Between-group comparisons suggest that the effective variables were related to the tutoring or its combination with the group contingency. However, the opportunity for intergroup discussion about treatment procedures and unequal assignment of subjects to the tutored and independent groups make conclusions about the between-group portion of the experiment tentative. Half to two-thirds of the students in each performance category viewed the peer-tutoring procedure favorably, and two-thirds or more reported that the procedure was effective in improving academic performance. Proportionately fewer students assigned to independent study found that procedure effective or viewed it favorably. It appears that pairing students with others who do better on tests and rewarding them for their combined performance results in considerable improvement in the performance of lower-level students.     

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.     

Translational evaluation of training structures in equivalence-based instruction

We used a laboratory preparation to evaluate the claim that equivalence-based instruction (EBI) is an efficient form of instruction due to eliminating the need for emergent relations to be taught. Three groups of college students received training to establish 3 stimulus classes with 4 members in each class. Two groups received either a linear series (EBI-LS) or a 1-to-many training structure (EBI-OTM group). A control group received complete instruction (CI) that targeted all possible relations between the members of each class. The EBI-OTM group required fewer trials to complete instruction compared to CI, whereas EBI-LS did not. The EBI-OTM and the CI groups performed equally well on a posttest that followed initial attainment of the mastery criterion, whereas the EBI-LS group performed more poorly than the other 2. The groups' performance on a function transfer test did not differ. The results support the claim that compared to CI, EBI is an efficient form of instruction when it follows an OTM structure. However, they also suggest this efficiency advantage cannot be attributed to the fewer relations that need to be taught in EBI, as the EBI-OTM and the EBI-LS groups were trained on the same number of relations.     

Teaching social perception skills to adolescents with autism and intellectual disabilities using video‐based group instruction

Few interventions focus on teaching social skills to adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disabilities (ID) that are consistently used during interactions with peers ( Carter et al., 2014). The present study evaluated the effects of video‐based group instruction (VGI) on the acquisition of social perception skills of five adolescents with ASD or ID in a public school setting. Social perception involves observing affective behaviors of others, discriminating relevant environmental stimuli, and differentially reinforcing the affective behavior of another person. Typically developing peers supported VGI implementation as social partners for participants. A multiple probe design across behaviors demonstrated the effectiveness of VGI for teaching social perception skills. Four of five participants acquired and maintained the targeted social perception skills, and we observed some transfer to a nontreatment setting. Results of this study suggest VGI may support the acquisition of social perception among adolescents with ASD or ID.     

Using an Embedding Strategy to Teach Preschoolers with Significant Disabilities

The purpose of this study was two-fold. First, this study analyzed the effects of using response prompting procedures within an embedded skill approach on skill acquisition by 4 preschoolers with significant disabilities. Two target skills were identified from each student's IEP and taught during three preschool activities. A multiple probe across subjects design assessed the effects of the intervention. All students made progress above baseline performance. More importantly, there was consistency in performance of the target skills across at least two of the three activities for all children. Second, the reliability with which paraprofessionals in the preschool setting implemented response prompting procedures was evaluated. Data indicated that the paraprofessionals implemented the procedures with a high degree of accuracy. The impact of embedded skill instruction is addressed, as well as the impact of using non-degreed personnel to teach students with significant disabilities within inclusive preschool programs.     

宋代理学家的犯罪心理学思想研究

以二程和朱熹为代表的理学家的犯罪心理学思想比较丰富,对后世的犯罪心理学思想的发展具有重要影响。这里,我们拟从人性与犯罪、人欲与犯罪、刑罚与教化等三个方面对宋代理学家的犯罪心理学思想作一些初步探讨。     

Developmental shifts in children's sensitivity to visual speech: a new multimodal picture-word task

This research developed a multimodal picture-word task for assessing the influence of visual speech on phonological processing by 100 children between 4 and 14 years of age. We assessed how manipulation of seemingly to-be-ignored auditory (A) and audiovisual (AV) phonological distractors affected picture naming without participants consciously trying to respond to the manipulation. Results varied in complex ways as a function of age and type and modality of distractors. Results for congruent AV distractors yielded an inverted U-shaped function with a significant influence of visual speech in 4-year-olds and 10- to 14-year-olds but not in 5- to 9-year-olds. In concert with dynamic systems theory, we proposed that the temporary loss of sensitivity to visual speech was reflecting reorganization of relevant knowledge and processing subsystems, particularly phonology. We speculated that reorganization may be associated with (a) formal literacy instruction and (b) developmental changes in multimodal processing and auditory perceptual, linguistic, and cognitive skills.     

不同的拼音教学方式对幼儿拼音水平及汉语语音意识发展的影响

本研究用纵向实验的方法考察了分享阅读(故事教学)和传统教学(字母教学)两种拼音教学方式对幼儿园中班儿童的拼音水平和汉语语音意识发展的影响。研究结果表明:(1)相对于无拼音教学组,两种形式的拼音教学均可以显著提高幼儿的字母知识,但分享阅读拼音教学对幼儿字母知识的促进作用更大。(2)分享阅读的拼音教学可以显著提高幼儿的拼读能力,而传统教学对幼儿的拼读能力基本没有促进。(3)分享阅读的拼音教学对幼儿的首音、韵脚和声调意识的发展有显著的促进作用,对幼儿自然发展起来的音节意识的影响很小;传统教学对幼儿的语音意识基本没有促进。