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Behavior Modification Methods in School Essay

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Education in the United States is a continuous source of controversy. How should the generations be taught? This is an extremely important and in depth issue that has many levels. Each level has its own disagreements. One particular level of education that has been researched is whether or not behavioral methods are effective enough to be used in the classroom to improve academic performance. As can be seen in the data included here, there are many forms of positive reinforcement contingencies that can be presented in the classroom. These may include social rewards, like acceptance and encouragement from peers, tangible rewards, like the token economy, or internally motivating rewards, like having a sense of self-efficacy and feeling …show more content…

Conversely, in the same study Mesch, Johnson, and Johnson (1987) mention Hays (1976) and Slavin (1983), who state the in a positive reward interdependence setting, students will increase their individual performance only if there is a specific academic group contingency reinforcing them to do so.

Two interesting studies have been conducted in the cooperative learning area with behavioral methods included. Mesch, Johnson and Johnson (1987), have done studies analyzing the impact of positive goal interdependence and the combination of positive goal interdependence and reward interdependence on the academic achievement of regular students and four handicapped students who were being mainstreamed into the regular classroom. These four students were put into a class with the lowest level of reading. They studied vocabulary words for 20 minutes every Thursday for 21 weeks, in preparation of a quiz on Friday. Every Tuesday, the children chose whether they wanted to study together or alone to complete a nonvocabulary instructional task. The specific reward contingency was bonus points toward their test grades. The positive goal interdependence condition consisted of this sequence except that every Thursday, the students studied in heterogeneous groups for 20 minutes. This particular study indicated that positive goal interdependence alone increased achievement, but

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