Behavioural Analysis in Class Room

Behavioural Analysis in Class Room

Use Negative Reinforcement Effectively

Use Prompts and Shaping

Earlier in our discussion of operant conditioning, we in­dicated that discrimination involves differentiating among stimuli or environmental events. Students can learn to discriminate among stimuli or events through differential reinforcement. Two differential reinforcement strategies available to teachers arc prompts and shaping (Alberto & Troutman, 1999).

Prompts A prompt is ,m added stimulus or cue that is given just before a response and increases the likelihood that the response will occur.

Shaping When teachers use prompts, they assume that students can perform the de­sired behaviors. But sometimes students do not have the ability to perform them. In this case, shaping is required. Shaping involves teaching new behaviors by reinforcing suc­cessive approximations to a specified target behavior. Initially, you reinforce any response that in some way resembles the target behavior. Subsequently, you reinforce a response.

Decreasing Undesirable Behaviors

When teachers want to decrease children's undesirable behaviors (such as teasing, hog­ging a class discussion, or smarting off to the teacher), what are their options? Applied behavior analysts Paul Alberto and Anne Troutman (1999) recommend that when teach­ers want to decrease a child's undesirable behavior, they should consider using these steps in this order:

1. Use differential reinforcement.

2. Terminate reinforcement (extinction).

3. Remove desirable stimuli.

4. Present aversive stimuli (punishment).

Thus, the teacher's first option should be differential reinforcement Punishment should be used only as a last resort and always in conjunction with providing the child infor­mation about appropriate behavior.

Use Differential Reinforcement

In differential reinforcement, the teacher rein­forces behavior that is more appropriate or that is incompatible with what the child is doing. For example, the teacher might reinforce a child for doing learning activities on a computer rather than playing games with it, for being courteous rather than interrupt­ing, for being seated rather than running around the classroom, or for doing homework on time rather than late.

Terminate Reinforcement (Extinction)

The strategy of terminating reinforcement involves withdrawing positive reinforcement from a child's inappropriate behavior. Many inappropriate behaviors are inadvertently maintained by positive reinforcement, especially the teacher's attention. Applied behavior analysts point out that this can occur even when the teacher gives attention to an inappropriate behavior by criticizing, threat­ening, or yelling at the student.

Remove Desirable Stimuli

Suppose you have tried the first two options, and they haven't worked. A third option is to remove desirable stimuli from the student. Two strategies for accomplishing this are "time-out" and "response cost"

Time-Out - The most widely used strategy that teachers use to remove desirable stimuli is time-out. In other words, take the student away from positive reinforcement.

Teaching Strategies For Using Time-Out

In using time-out, you have several options:

1. Keep the student in the classroom but deny the student access to positive reinforce­ment. This strategy is most often used when a student does something minor. The teacher might ask the student to put his head down on the desk for a few minutes or might move the student to the periphery of an activity so the student can still observe other students experiencing positive reinforcement.

2. For time-out to be effective, the setting from which the student is removed has to be positively reinforcing and the setting in which the student is placed has to not be positively reinforcing. For example, if you seat a student in the hall outside your classroom and students- from other classes come down the hall and talk with the student, the time-out is clearly not going to serve its intended purpose.

3. If you use time-out, be sure to identify the student's behaviors that resulted in time­out.

4. Keep records of each time-out session, especially if a time-out room is used. This will help you monitor effective and ethical use of time-outs.

Response Cost

A second strategy for removing desirable stimuli involves response cost, which refers to taking a positive reinforcer away from a student, as when the student loses certain privileges. For example, alter a student misbehaves, the teacher might takeaway ten minutes of recess lime or the privilege of being a class monitor. Response cost typically Involves some type of penalty or fine. As with the time-out. response cost should always be used in conjunction with strategies for increasing the student's positive behaviors.

Present Aversive Stimuli (Punishment)

Most people associate the presenta­tion of aversive (unpleasant) stimuli with punishment, as when a teacher yells at a student or a parent spanks a child.

The most common types of aversive stimuli that teachers use are verbal repri­mands. These are more effectively used when the teacher is near the student rather than across the room and when used together with a nonverbal reprimand such as a frown or eye contact. Reprimands are more effective when they are given immediately after unwanted behavior rather than later and when they are quick and to the point.

Many countries, such as Sweden, have banned the physical punishment of school­children (which usually involves school paddling) by principals and teachers. However, in America, 24 states still allow it (Hyman, 1994).

Physical or otherwise, numerous problems are associated with using aversive stim­uli as intended punishment (Hyman, 1997; Hyman & Snook, 1999):

* Especially when you use intense punishment such as yelling or screaming, you are presenting students with an out-of-control model for handling stressful situations.

• Punishment can instill fear, rage, or avoidance in students. Skinner's biggest concern was this: What punishment teaches is how to avoid something. For example, a stu­dent who experiences a punitive teacher might show a dislike for the teacher and not want to come to school.

- When students are punished, they might become so aroused and anxious that they can't concentrate clearly on their work for a long time after the punishment has been given.

* Punishment tells students what not to do rather than what to do. If you make a punishing statement, such as "No, that's not right," always accompany it with posi­tive feedback, such as "but why don't you try this."

• What is intended as punishment can turn out to be reinforcing. A student might learn that misbehaving will not only get the teacher's attention but put the student in the limelight with classmates as well.

COPING WITH UNDESIREABLE BEHAVIOR

No matter how successful you are at accentuating the positive, there are times when you must cope with undesirable behavior, either because other methods fail or because the beahaviour itself is dangerous and calls for direct action. For this purpose, negative reinforcement, satiation, reprimands, and punishment all other possible solutions.

Negative Reinforcement. Recall the basic principle of negative reinforcement; If an action stops or avoids something unpleasant, then the action is likely to occur again in similar situations. Negative reinforcement may also be used to enhance learning. To do this, you place students in mildly unpleasant situations so they can "escape" when their be­havior improves.

Negative reinforcement also gives students a chance to exercise control.

Satiation.   Another way to stop problem behavior is to insist that students continue the behavior until they are tired of doing it. This procedure, called satiation, should be applied with care. Forcing students to continue some behaviors may be physically or emotionally harmful or even dangerous. In using satiation, a teacher must take care not to give in before the students do. It is also important that the repeated behavior be the one you are trying to end.

Reprimands. Criticisms for misbehavior, rebukes.

Response cost. Punishment by loss of reinforces.

Social isolation. Removal of a disruptive student for 5 to 10 minutes.

Time out. Technically, the removal of all reinforcement. In practice, isolation of a student from the rest of the class for a brief time.

Cognitive behaviour modification and management

(Behavioural approaches to Teaching and Management)

Mastery learning: Teaching approach in which students must learn one unit and pass a test at a specified level before moving to the next unit.

Good behavior game:  Arrangement where a class is divided into teams and each team receives demerit points for breaking agreed-upon rules of good behavior.

Croup consequences: Reward or punishments given to a class as a whole for adhering lo or violating rules of conduct.

Token reinforcement system: System in which tokens earned for academic work and positive classroom behavior can be exchanged for some desired reward.

Contingency contract: A contract between the teacher and a student specifying what the student must do to earn a particular reward or privilege.

A recent application of behavioural views of learning emphasizes self-management – helping students gain control of their own learning.

Self-Management

Use of behavioural learning principles to change your own behavior. If one goal of education is to produce people who are capable of educating them-selves, then students must learn to manage their own lives, set their own goals, and provide their own reinforcement. In adult life, rewards are sometimes vague and goals often take a long time to reach. Think about how many small steps are required to complete an education and find your first job. Life is filled with tasks that call for this sort of self-management (Kanfer & Gaclick. 1986).

Students may be involved in any or all of the steps in implementing a basic be­havior change program. They may help set goals, observe their own work, keep records of it, and evaluate their own performance. Finally, they can select and deliver reinforcement. Such involvement can help students master all the steps so they can perform these tasks in the future (Kaplan. 1991).

Goal Setting. It appears that the goal-setting phase is very important in self-management (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002; Reeve, 1996). In fact, some research suggests that setting specific goals and making them public maybe the critical elements of self-management programs.

Monitoring and Evaluating Progress. Students may also participate in the monitoring and evaluation phases of a behavior change program. Some examples of behaviors that are appropriate for self-monitoring are the number of assignments completed, time spent practicing a skill, number of books read, number of problems correct, and time taken to run a mile. Tasks that must be accomplished without teacher supervision, such as homework or private study, are also good candidates for self-monitoring. Students keep a chart, diary, or checklist recording the frequency or duration of the behaviors in question.

A progress record card can help older students break down assignments into small steps, determine the best sequence for completing the steps, and keep track of daily progress by setting goals for each day. Here is a checklist, taken from Belfiore, & Hornyak1998) to help students manage their homework:

1. Did 1 turn in yesterday’s homework?

2- Did I write all homework assignments in my notebook?

3. Is all the homework in the homework folder?

4. Art all my materials to complete my homework with me?

5. Begin Homework

6. Are all homework papers completed?

7. Did someone check homework to make sure it was completed!

8. After checking, did I put all homework back in fouler*

9. Did I give this paper to teacher? {p. 190),

Self-evaluation is somewhat more difficult than simple self-recording because it involves making a judgment about quality. Students can evaluate their behavior with reasonable accuracy, especially if they learn standards for judging a good performance or product.

Self-Reinforcement. Providing yourself with positive consequences, contingent on accomplishing a particular behavior. The last step in self-management is self-reinforcement. There is some disagreement, however, as to whether this step is actually necessary. Some psychologists believe that setting goals and monitoring progress alone are suf­ficient and that self-reinforcement adds nothing lo the effects (Hayes et al.. 1985). Others believe that rewarding yourself for a job well done can lead lo higher levels of performance than simply setting goals and keeping track of progress (Bandura. 1986). If you are willing to be tough and really deny yourself something you want until your goals are reached, then perhaps the promise of the reward can provide extra incentive for work.

Cognitive Behavior Modification and Self-Instruction

Self-management generally means getting students involved in the basic steps of a be­havior change program. Cognitive behavior modification adds an emphasis on thinking and self-talk. They talk to themselves, often repeating the words of a parent or teacher. In cognitive behavior modification, students are taught directly how to use self-instruction. Meichenbaum (1977) outlined the steps:

1. An adult model performs a task while talking to him- or herself out loud (cog­nitive modeling).

2. The child performs the same task under the direction of the model's instructions (overt, external guidance).

3. The child performs the task while instructing him- or herself aloud (overt, self-guidance).

4. The child whispers the instructions to him- or herself as he/she goes through the task (faded.overt self-guidance).

5. The child performs the task while guiding his/her performance via private speech (covert self-instruct ion), (p, 32)

Brenda Manning and Beverly Payne(1996) list four skills that can increase student learning: listening, planning, working, and checking.