Effects Of Positive Reinforcement

A behaviourist perspective suggests that all behaviour is observable, objective and learnt from experience. It is believed that behaviour can be learnt and reinforced through operant conditioning and unconscious physical response can be learnt through classical conditioning.

Parents should eliminate the use of physical punishment as a form of reinforcement for children because it could possibly lead into the act of child abuse; instead, parents should try alternate methods for teaching children acceptable behavior.

Positive reinforcement is rewarding a behavior with a consequence that is pleasant to the recipient in order to encourage the behavior. An example of this in The Breakfast Club

I chose to research the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports approach to positive reinforcement. I wanted to find out if this approach taught temporary or long-term (positive) behavioral changes. I researched this approach and compared it to the Responsive Classroom approach. In order to determine its effectiveness, I looked at referral data at Nimitz High School provided around this time this last year, and compared it to its current numbers. While it showed beneficial changes last year, I found an increase in behavioral problems this year. I also attempted to look at the reasoning behind the

Reinforcement is an essential part in identifying and encouraging a certain behavior. In the most classic definition, positive reinforcement is a method of identifying to children which behaviors are acceptable and appropriate and which are not (Sigler, E. & Aamidor, S, 2005). Reinforcement is often given as praise for doing a certain task. As educators, saying “great job” or a simple word like “fantastic” are expressed towards students as praise. However, when a student is struggling and praise is given such as “you are doing so well”, the negative aspects of praise present themselves. The child is aware of the empty praise therefore it may work against the teacher if it is taken as a false

Skinner’s reinforcement experiments conducted on rats showed the principles of operant conditioning. While working with rats, Skinner would place them in a Skinner box with a lever attached to a feeding tube. After multiple trials, rats learned the connection between the lever and food, and started to spend more time in the box procuring food than performing any other action. He used positive reinforcement, and negative reinforcement to produce or inhibit specific target behaviors. Therefore, if a specific behavior is reinforced then the probability of that behavior occurring again is increased. Based on Skinner’s view, this theory can be applied to learning because learning is nothing more than a change in behavior. Operant conditioning encourages positive reinforcement, which can be applied in the classroom environment to get the good behavior you want and need from students. One of the ways of reinforcing a student’s behavior is through praise. Also teachers can build operant conditioning techniques into their lesson plans to teach children possible skills as well as good behaviors. For example: to give a smiley face, or motivational stamps to encourage children to perform correctly and encourage them to repeat such action again.

Participants will be assigned into four lab rooms with twenty students in each. First they will be primed randomly with either promotion or prevention focus, by writing a short essay describing how their personal standards had changed as they get matured, and they also need to complete the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (Higgins et al., 2001) to check the success of the manipulation. Second, they will be given a difficult college-level math problem to solve and hand in within 20 minutes. Third, their answer sheets, which all have a failed feedback regardless of their actual performance, will be returned to them. Forth, they will be given a survey on rating of how enjoyable the math problem was, as well as indicate their choice for the next task to perform: a similar math problem or a different word or logic puzzle task which share the same difficulty. Finally, once the surveys are collected, the experiment is done. Participants are free to quit the task at anytime. If so, the quitted students will also be excluded from the analysis.

The use of reinforces cause the target behavior to occur more with the pass of the time. I would say

When it comes to inspiring behavioral changes positive reinforcement is more effective than punishment in terms of changing the behavior in the long term. How effectively positive reinforcement affects behavioral changes is closely tied to how behavioral changes are incentivized and rewards bestowed. The case is similar for the application of negative reinforcement. However, rewards and punishments must significantly affect a person’s current situation--for better or worse--in order to inspire change. Let’s look at how positive reinforcement typically results in long-term behavioral change more effectively than punishment overall.

There was an experiment using marshmallows as rewards to kids to see how being patient influences their achievement. In the experiment, if the kids were able to wait for a longer while, they were rewarded with more marshmallows than they originally would have. The results show that if the kids are willing to delay gratitude, they will have better educational achievement.

2. Practice effects - If they know they are going to be tested, and if they keep coming back, participants may be better, more calmer.

Effort-based praise leads to learning goals as a result of work effort and being aware that learning is a process of the work they put forth. This results in less frustration because children feel they are not being tested. In addition, they will attribute their performance to effort, which opens the door for growing possibilities in learning. Hence, children can interpret poor performances as correctable by using effort and by not seeing them as deficits in intelligence or in ability (Weaver et al., 2004).

The coach adopts the use of rewards such as games with a scoring system, allowing students to progress when they can perform a skill and giving a long term goal, the floor routine assessment. He uses this in order to channel the competitiveness in the students and give those rewards for completing tasks, Reece & Walker (2007) acknowledge these characteristics in teaching as behaviourism. This external reward system is acknowledged by the likes of Pavlov (1927), Watson () and Thorndike () in their conditioned learning studies. This theory is used over the likes of constructivists and social as it provides a simple outcome for all students in the shape of a reward, the rewards can be used to stimulate all stages of learners form cognitive to autonomous (Center for research on learning and teaching, 2015). Both Pavlov (1927) and Watson during their experiment fostered the use of punishment when the outcome was not obtain, by doing so they hoped to achieve quicker learning and reduce the level of failure in their subjects. However the coach does not use this approach and favours the approach of Thorndike () who acknowledges, the use of punishment causes discomfort and unwillingness to perform. Therefore the use of conditioned learning is used as a stimulus but not as a discouragement, the coach’s objective is to use the appropriate stimulus to motivate and develop students and uses this theory for this method only. By using this theory the lessons are very much controlled, in

One of the simplest and most commonly-used methods of conceptualizing learning is that of reinforcement theory (Noe 2010: 142). Every time a parent promises a child a toy for being good during a grocery store trip or threatens a teen with being grounded for bad grades, he or she is using reinforcement theory. Reinforcement theory is based upon the assumption that people want to experience as much pleasure as possible and avoid pain. Thus, businesses offer workers bonuses for good work, and issue reprimands (such as docking pay or denying a promotion) for poor behavior.

The strengths of positive reinforcement in shaping Jane’s students are that students would be encouraged to be more participative and focus. Students are more likely to attentive especially when they know they would be awarded for what they have done. It would be a mini sense of achievement for students although the reward might only be a bar of chocolate. It motivates them to be more participative during lessons and the activities that are being conducted in class. Jane’s students would find it livelier as they know they are being addressed in for what they know. Meaning the bar of chocolate would be a mini acknowledgement for them for answering questions in