Parental educational involvement conceived as the arrangement of contingency operations

This study explored the utility of a conception of parental educational involvement as the arrangement of contingency operations that normatively change: the frequency of children’s school‐related behaviour, the reinforcing potency of stimuli produced by studying, and children’s tendencies to request parental intervention. A child‐report measure of parental contingency use was developed and administered to 1520 schoolchildren (Grades Four to Six). An exploratory factor analysis revealed three internally consistent dimensions of parental practices: use of punishment and negative reinforcement contingencies; use of positive reinforcement contingencies; and non‐responsiveness to children’s requests for educational intervention. Frequencies of use of punishment/negative reinforcement contingencies and of parental non‐responsiveness were inversely correlated with use of positive reinforcement contingencies and with teacher’s reports of children’s achievement. These scales might therefore identify parents whose current educational practices are likely to be less than optimally effective, so that they might be helped to intervene more beneficially in their children’s academic affairs.     

Linking parental scaffolding with self-regulated learning in Chinese kindergarten children

The current study aimed to examine the relationships between dimensions of parental scaffolding and children's self-regulated learning (SRL). One hundred and thirty Chinese kindergarten children participated in a range of problem-solving tasks with their parents and independently. Parent-child interactions and child-alone behaviours were video-recorded for an in-depth observational analysis. Parental cognitive support, emotional support, and contingency were coded in parent-child interactions. Children's cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational strategic behaviours and task performance were coded and assessed within the context of child-alone tasks. Results showed that contingency was particularly important for children's SRL. Parental contingency was the only independent predictor of children's SRL among the three aspects of parental scaffolding and mediated the effect of parent education levels on children's SRL.     

The Development of Nonsymbolic Probability Judgments in Children

Two experiments were designed to investigate the developmental trajectory of children's probability approximation abilities. In Experiment 1, results revealed 6- and 7-year-old children's (N = 48) probability judgments improve with age and become more accurate as the distance between two ratios increases. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with 7- to 12-year-old children (N = 130) while also accounting for the effect of the size and the perceived numerosity of target objects. Older children's performance suggested the correct use of proportions for estimating probability; but in some cases, children relied on heuristic shortcuts. These results suggest that children's nonsymbolic probability judgments show a clear distance effect and that the acuity of probability estimations increases with age.     

Training preservice teachers to use evidence-based practices: Effects of coaching with performance feedback on teacher and child outcomes

Three-term contingency trials (TCTs) involve planned/naturally occurring antecedents, child's demonstration of target behaviors, and planned/naturally occurring consequences. Positive relationships between teachers' frequent use of TCTs and children's learning were noted in literature. This study aimed to investigate impact of an intervention package including training and coaching with performance feedback on experienced and novice special education preservice teachers' use of TCTs and relationship between teachers' implementation and child outcomes through two single-case experiments using multiple baseline across participants design. Three special education preservice teachers and three children with disabilities participated in each study. Results indicated intervention package was effective in increasing preservice teachers' use of TCTs. Preservice teachers generalized their use and sustained it during maintenance sessions conducted after intervention ended. Furthermore, as frequency and accuracy of preservice teachers' implementation increased, percentage of children's correct responses in relation to target skills improved. Implications for future practice and research are discussed.     

Student achievement and differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior: Hand raising

Workbook reading achievement of five second-grade girls was assessed under two teacher-contact contingencies. Under one contingency, teacher contacts were made during on-task behavior. Under the other contingency, differential reinforcement of an incompatible behavior (DRI) was in effect, with teacher contacts contingent on students' hand-raising behavior. Both reading achievement and time on task were greater under the on-task contingency than under DRI for hand raising.     

Resistance to extinction: contingency termination and generalization decrement

We present an algebraic model of resistance to extinction that is consistent with research on resistance to change. The model assumes that response strength is a power function of reinforcer rate and that extinction involves two additive, decremental processes: (1) the termination of the reinforcement contingency and (2) generalization decrement resulting from reinforcer omission. The model was supported by three experiments. In Experiment 1, 4 pigeons were trained on two-component multiple variable-interval (VI) 60-sec, VI 240-sec schedules. In two conditions, resistance to change was tested by terminating the response-reinforcer contingency and presenting response-independent reinforcers at the same rate as in training. In two further conditions, resistance to change was tested by prefeeding and by extinction. In Experiment 2, 6 pigeons were trained on two-component multiple VI 150-sec schedules with 8-sec or 2-sec reinforcers, and resistance to change was tested by terminating the response-reinforcer contingency in three conditions. In two of those conditions, brief delays were interposed between responses and response-independent reinforcers. In both Experiments 1 and 2, response rate was more resistant to change in the richer component, except for extinction in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, 8 pigeons were trained on multiple VI 30-sec, VI 120-sec schedules. During extinction, half of the presentations of each component were accompanied by a novel stimulus to produce generalization decrement. The extinction data of Experiments 1 and 3 were well described by our model. The value of the exponent relating response strength and reinforcement was similar in all three experiments.     

Transitions to Competence: An Investigation of Adult Mediation in Preschoolers' Self-Regulation With a Microcomputer-Based Problem-Solving Task

The effectiveness of specific dimensions of adult mediation on preschoolers' self- regulation of a model-consultation strategy was evaluated using microcomputer puzzle tasks. Two trained tutors taught 61 children who were pretested and randomly assigned to one of four treatments devised to test two factors of mediation: access and analysis of a picture-puzzle model prior to or during problem solving. Tutorial interchanges of treatments were designed on the basis of the Vygotskian tenet that effective instruction includes a concern for children's actual and potential developmental levels and occurs through participation with others during problem solving. Measures of model-consultation were calculated from three videotaped sessions and used to assess children's self-regulation during treatment and in immediate and delayed posttests. Analyses revealed significant differences for the access and analysis effects in posttests, but only in the delayed posttest for the latter. Significant differences were found for the planned contrast in the delayed posttest. The study suggests that children's acquisition of the model-consultation can improve over a short period of time, although not immediately, with culturally mediated instruction and does not improve solely as a function of practice.     

The effects of group size on kindergarten children's listening comprehension performance

The present study assessed the effect of small, medium, and large group size on kindergarten children's listening comprehension. Approximately 120 children were divided by sex and randomly assigned to one of four groups which varied from one another only in size. To determine the children's entry listening comprehension skill level, subtests of four reading tests were administered to all children. Those children participating in one adult to one child instruction, one adult to seven or eight children instruction, and one adult to fifteen children instruction interacted daily for ten sessions with an instructor who posed specific comprehension questions, read a carefully selected piece of children's literature, then restated the comprehension questions to assess the children's understanding of the story. All responses were recorded on a pictorial answer sheet. Those children in the control group received no instruction. The children's exit level listening comprehension skills were reassessed by administering the same preinstruction subtests to all children immediately following the ten sessions. Group size was found to affect significantly the children's performance, with one to one instruction resulting in the greatest gains.     

An Evaluation of a Children's Safety Training Programme

This paper reports an experimental evaluation of a children's safety training programme,Kidscape, which aims to increase primary school children's ability to deal with four types of potentially unsafe situation: being bullied, being approached by a stranger, being subject to inappropriate intimacy from a known adult and to pressure from such adults to keep such intimacy secret. Assessments of children's safety awareness were carried out in three schools which used the programme, and in three matched control schools which did not, with children at two age levels, 6 years and 10 years. These assessments of children's awareness were made on three occasions: before, immediately after and 2‐3 months after the training programme for the experimental sample (60 children) and on corresponding occasions for the control sample (60 children). The results revealed a significant improvement in the safety awareness of the experimental (trained) group after training and also a significant difference between the groups, in favour of the trained group. However, an improved performance of the control (untrained) group suggests that factors other than the Kidscape programme itself may influence these differences. Age differences in children's wariness of the four safety situations are also discussed.     

Discrimination blocking: Acquisition versus performance deficits in human contingency learning

We compared acquisition and performance accounts of human contingency learning. After solving a discrimination in Phase 1, in which Cue A predicted the occurrence of the outcome and Cue B predicted its nonoccurrence (A+/B−), a new discrimination (X+/Y−) was superimposed in Phase 2 (AX+/BY−). The participants were finally trained in Phase 3 with the added discrimination, which either maintained the same contingencies as those in Phase 2 (X+/Y−; Experiment 1) or reversed the contingencies (X−/Y+; Experiment 2). According to competitive-learning theories (e.g., Rescorla & Wagner, 1972), there should be no learning of the added discrimination in Phase 2, so that no advantage or disadvantage for this discrimination should be observed in Phase 3. In contrast, performance theories, such as the comparator hypothesis (Miller & Matzel, 1988), contend that learning of the added discrimination in Phase 2 should proceed normally; so, in Phase 3, an advantage for the added discrimination should be observed in Experiment 1, but a disadvantage should be observed in Experiment 2. Our participants learned about the added discrimination and generally showed the effects predicted by the comparator hypothesis.     

Preserved nodal number effects under equal reinforcement

The present set of experiments tested the hypothesis that the nodal number effects observed in previous studies of stimulus equivalence were due to the confounding factor of training structure that resulted in unequal reinforcement across trial types. In Experiment 1, two 5-member equivalence classes were trained across equal and unequal reinforcement conditions, both with and without a limited hold. A significant nodal effect, as measured by response speed, was found in the equal reinforcement, no-limited-hold condition. In Experiment 2, two 6-member equivalence classes were trained in equal and unequal reinforcement conditions without limited hold. In a transfer-of-function test, clear nodal effects were observed in the equal reinforcement condition. Experiment 3 replicated and extended the findings of Experiments 1 and 2 with an increased number of baseline training trials. The results of the present study suggest that the effects of nodal number are independent of differential reinforcement. Furthermore, a transfer-of-function test was most sensitive to nodal effects, response speed was the next most sensitive measure, and response accuracy was the least sensitive measure of nodal effects.     

Transfer of facilitation in the rat

In two experiments, rats solved two concurrent discrimination problems in which one stimulus (i.e., a facilitator) signaled the reinforcement of another stimulus (i.e., a target). Then a transfer test assessed the capacity of facilitators trained in one problem to promote responding to targets trained in the other. Experiment 1 found that a facilitator promoted as much responding to such a transfer target as to the target with which it was originally trained. Transfer was not obtained with a pseudofacilitator that was uninformative, in training, about the reinforcement of its target. Experiment 2 manipulated the stimulus modality of the targets and facilitators. Its results indicated that transfer performance was not due to generalization between training and transfer targets or facilitators. These results parallel those from comparable autoshaping paradigms with pigeons, and they agree with the view that facilitators promote responding by lowering the threshold for activation of the US representation.     

Making sense of science in the reception class

In the context of growing awareness of young children's capabilities, and debates about the nature of their reasoning in science, this study set out to explore the ways in which reception children make sense of classroom experiences in science. A particular challenge of the study was to develop appropriate and productive approaches to investigating young children's developing thinking. The first phase of research, reported in this paper, concentrated on the topic of electricity. A series of case studies was undertaken to examine children's learning in a classroom context. Classroom sessions were video recorded and transcribed to examine the development of children's practical competence in circuit making, and interviews were carried out to elicit children's views about electric circuits. Analysis of the classroom sessions revealed children's growing competence in circuit making through their self‐directed efforts. The interviews prompted predictions and explanations that were not offered spontaneously. Responses indicated a range of models of the circuit and forms of explanation for what was happening in the circuit. The relationship between children's practical competence, predictions and explanations was not straightforward. Analysis revealed marked differences in models of the circuit and forms of explanation in children with the same levels of practical competence. This has important implications for the ways in which children's views are assessed.     

Instrumental responding by rats on free-operant schedules with components that schedule response-dependent reinforcer omission: Implications for optimization theories

In two experiments, we assessed whether rats optimize the number of reinforcers per response. In Experiment 1, one group of rats was trained to leverpress for food reinforcement on a simple variable-interval (VI) 60-sec schedule. For another group, a negative fixed-ratio component was imposed on the VI schedule to produce a conjoint contingency in which reinforcement became available on the VI schedule but was omitted when the ratio criterion was satisfied. In Experiment 2, one group of rats responded on a VI schedule and also received response-independent food. For another group, responding above a certain rate canceled the response-independent food. Despite the negative contingency experienced by the groups in Experiments 1 and 2, responding was maintained at a level at which the number of obtained reinforcers was reduced substantially below the maximum number possible. In addition, in both experiments, the groups that experienced the negative contingency responded at a lower rate than did a yoked control group that experienced the same frequency of reinforcement but lacked the negative component. These results demonstrate that although rats do not optimize their behavior with respect to reinforcement, they are nevertheless sensitive to some aspect of the instrumental contingency in operation.     

Specification of the stimulus-reinforcer relation in multiple schedules: Delay and probability of reinforcement

Control of pigeons’ keypecking by a stimulus-reinforcer contingency was investigated in the context of a four-component multiple schedule. In each of three experiments, pigeons were exposed to a schedule consisting of two two-component sequences. Discriminative stimuli identifying each sequence were present only in Component 1, which was 4, 6, or 8 sec in duration, while reinforcers could be earned only in Component 2 (30 sec in duration). Control by a stimulus-reinforcer contingency was sought during Component 1 by arranging a differential relation between Component 1 cues and schedule of reinforcement in Component 2. In Experiment 1, rate of keypecking during Component 1 varied with the presence and absence of a stimulus-reinforcer contingency. When a contingency was introduced, rate of keypecking increased during the Component 1 cue associated with the availability of reinforcement in Component 2. In Experiment 2, the stimulus-reinforcer contingency was manipulated parametrically by varying the correlation between Component 1 cues and Component 2 schedules of reinforcement. Responding in Component 1 varied as a function of strength of the stimulus-reinforcer contingency. The relatively high rates of Component 1 responding observed in Experiments 1 and 2 pose difficulties for conceptions of stimulus-reinforcer control based on probability of reinforcement. In these two experiments, the stimulus-associated probabilities of reinforcement in Component 1 were invariant at zero. An alternate dimension of stimulus-reinforcer control was explored in Experiment 3, in which Component 1 cues were differentially associated with delay to reinforcement in Component 2, while probability of reinforcement was held constant across components. When the stimulus-reinforcer contingency was in force, rate of responding in Component 1 varied inversely with delay to reinforcement in Component 2. In a quantitative analysis of data from Experiments 2 and 3, relative rate of responding during Component 1 was strongly correlated with two measures of relative delay to reinforcement.     

Videotaping as a Means of Self-Monitoring to Improve Theater Students' Performance

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of retroactive and focused self-monitoring, actualized by videotaping, on children's theater performance. In Experiment 1, 20 students in a theater performance program were randomly assigned to either a control or a self-monitoring condition, and their weekly rehearsals were videotaped. Only students in the self-monitoring condition viewed their videotaped rehearsals. The authors found that retroactive self-monitoring enhanced theater performance. In Experiment 2, 36 children preparing for a Christmas play were randomly assigned to either a focused or to a general self-monitoring condition. They viewed their videotaped rehearsals; the focused self-monitoring group received a list of important aspects of the performance to watch. The focused self-monitoring enhanced the children's performance in the play.     

Retention period differentially attenuates win–shift/lose–stay relative to win–stay/lose–shift performance in the rat

Hungry rats were trained in a two-lever conditioning chamber to earn food reinforcement according to either a win–shift/lose–stay or a win–stay/lose–shift contingency. Performance on the two contingencies was similar when there was little delay between the initial, information part of the trial (i.e., win or lose) and the choice portion of the trial (i.e., stay or shift with respect to the lever presented in the information stage). However, when a delay between the information and choice portions of the trial was introduced, subjects experiencing the win–shift/lose–stay contingency performed worse than subjects experiencing the alternative contingency. In particular, the lose–stay rule was differentially negatively impacted relative to the other rules. This result is difficult for ecological or response interference accounts to explain.     

Using a random dependent group contingency to increase on‐task behaviors of high school students with high incidence disabilities

Group contingencies have the advantages of encouraging individual students to collectively feel responsible for appropriate and inappropriate classroom behaviors and have shown effectiveness in improving students' behavior. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a random dependent group contingency on the on‐task behaviors of six high school students with high incidence disabilities in a resource classroom. The study used an ABAB reversal design, and the results of the study indicated that the random dependent group contingency intervention was positively associated with increases in on‐task behaviors for three of the six participants. Limitations and implications are discussed in relation to dependent group contingencies for high school students. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Transfer of judgments of control to a target stimulus and to novel stimuli through derived relations

Three experiments examined the effect of response?Coutcome contingencies on human ratings of causal efficacy and demonstrated that such ratings transfer to novel situations through derived stimulus relations. Efficacy ratings generally followed the delta probability rule when positive response-outcome contingencies were employed (Experiment 1) and when some outcomes were not contingent on participants?? responses (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 employed a negative response?Coutcome contingency and manipulated performance expectancies in the task. All three groups overestimated their causal efficacy ratings. A learned helplessness effect was observed when the response?Coutcomes were uncontrollable and in the high-expectancy group when participants?? performance in the task was worse than they had expected. In all experiments, ratings transferred to a stimulus presented during the task and often generalized to novel stimuli through derived relations. These results corroborate the view that outcome probability is a determinant of causal efficacy ratings and that schedules can be employed as UCS in procedures that share characteristics of evaluative conditioning procedures.     

Beginning readers' use of ‘talking books’ software can affect their reading strategies

This paper reports on a small‐scale study that considered whether a phonic‐based ‘talking book’ could outperform one‐to‐one reading tuition with an adult with respect to improving beginning readers' phonological awareness over a short period. It also examined whether the children's reading strategies were affected by their use of the software. Two groups of children, one aged five years and one aged six years, used three phonic‐based talking books over six 15‐minute sessions and were assessed on their phonological awareness and reading strategies both before and after this intervention. Their performance was compared to that of matched comparison groups who were given one‐to‐one adult tutoring with the paper versions of the same books. There were no significant differences between the two groups in their phonological awareness attainment, with both groups showing equivalent gains from pre‐ to post‐test. Use of specific features of the software was associated with gains in rhyme detection ability and with changes in the children's reading strategies.