The use of rewards and punishment in early childhood classrooms

Abstract

Much has been written about the problems associated with reliance on extrinsic rewards and punishment in controlling behavior and motivating students. This study explores the use of extrinsic rewards and punishment by prekindergarten ‐ grade 3 teachers in Missouri. The purpose of the study was to (a) determine the most common motivational practices and classroom management strategies being used by prekindergarten ‐ grade 3 teachers; (b) determine the range of costs of rewards given to children and the source of these funds; (c) determine administrative and parental support; and (d) determine what influenced the teachers’ choices of behavior management strategies. Results of the study indicated that a significant majority of the respondents chose good instructional practices of the teacher as having the most positive influence on child behavior. However, most of the teachers responding continued to use extrinsic rewards and punishment to achieve acceptable behavior management and student motivation. In addition to reviewing the recent literature on extrinsic rewards and punishment, the authors discuss the implications of the findings for teacher educators and for those responsible for professional development programs for teachers. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.     

Pain Tolerance,Arousal, and Personality Relationships of Athletes and Nonathletes

Abstract

Eighty-four subjects were randomly selected from intercollegiate sport groups of basketball, baseball, football linemen, football backs, track distance runners, track field and sprint men, and nonathlete males. Subjects submitted to a muscular endurance task employed to determine pain tolerance during which Galvanic Skin Response measures of arousal were obtained. The Bernreuter Personality Inventory was administered to each subject following the treatment. Data were treated by ANCOVA and discriminant analysis techniques for sport and nonsport group comparisons of pain tolerance, arousal, and personality. No differences were found among groups.     

Learning and Varying Sequences of Ninth-Grade Mathematics Materials

This experiment compared three sequence versions (logical, scrambled, and reverse frame orders) of the guided discovery program, Number Series, used by Gagné and Brown in their 1961 study. Sixteen ninth-grade algebra students in each of the three sequence groups plus a control group served as the subjects. While the logical order group was the only sequence group to perform significantly better than the controls on both a test of concepts and a problem solving test, none of the three sequence groups differed significantly from each other on posttest performance. Logical group students did, however, make significantly fewer program errors. They also tended to consider the program “interesting,” whereas scrambled and reverse order groups felt “neutral” about the program.     

Utilizing Adventure Education Within the Model of Moral Action

Character development has long been an assumed if not easily observed goal of physical activity. Shields and Bredemeier(1995, 2001) proposed a structural developmental model of moral action strongly based on the work of Rest (1984, 1994) along with the significant contributions of Piaget (1923), Kohlbcrg (1981, 1984), and Haan (Haan, Aerts, & Conper, 1985). Adventure education is an experientially based approach that utilizes cooperative physical activities to foster self esteem, trust, communication skills, self awareness, confidence, and the ability to problem solve (Bissnn, 1999: Prouty, 1999). The purpose of this paper is lo explore how adventure-based intervention strategies correspond with the theoretical tenets and implementation guidelines of the model of moral action. The major tenets of the model of tnoral action (Shields & Bredemeier, 1995, 2001) and adventure education are discussed. The extent to which adventure education may act as a conduit for the moral education strategies forwarded by the model of moral action is discussed.     

Changing attitudes and emotions toward coyotes with experiential education

ABSTRACT

An experiential education program was designed to target risk perceptions and preventative measures that make people feel comfortable in human-coyote interactions. The research was conducted in a Canadian national park where a coyote caused a human fatality in 2009. Based on previous research, we explored the effects of an experience-based coyote education program on people's (a) attitudes toward, (b) fear of, (c) likelihood of, and (d) control over coming into contact with coyotes. A pre-post-test experiment (n = 150; 96% completion rate) was conducted. The experiential education approach to wildlife safety and coexistence communication had a significant positive effect on people's attitudes, significantly decreased their sense of fear toward coyotes, significantly decreased their sense of likelihood, and increased their sense of control in human-coyote interactions.     

The robustness of pre‐school children’s tendency to count discrete physical objects

When pre‐school children count an array of objects containing one that is broken in half, most count the halves as two separate objects. Two studies explore this predisposition to count discrete physical objects (DPOs) and investigate its robustness in the face of various manipulations. In Experiment 1, 32 children aged three–four years counted arrays of intact and broken objects, comprising familiar objects known to be separable (e.g. a lolly and its stick) or non‐separable (e.g. a toothbrush). The meaning of presenting a broken object was made explicit as some children saw a ‘naughty Ted’ causing the breakage. The DPO bias was robust in the face of these familiarity and context manipulations. Experiment 2 tested whether the DPO bias could be overcome by teaching children a strategy for counting two parts as one whole and also considered whether children’s prior knowledge of cardinality was associated with the bias. Only eight children (33%) benefited from the strategy teaching. At a second post‐test two to three days later, half of these had reverted to their DPO bias. Cardinality knowledge was not associated with improvement. The robustness of the bias to count DPOs is discussed in terms of innate predispositions and abstracted representations.