The main argument being presented in this paper is that instructional designers and educational researchers need to shift their attention from performance to interest. Educational digital games have to aim at building lasting interest in real world applications. The main hypothesis advocated in this paper is that the use of rewards in educational…

All sixth grade pupils in the largest elementary school in New Orleans were involved in a study to assess the effects of social reinforcement on the use of library books. The number of library books used by both experimental and control groups was ascertained and compared. Standard arithmetic procedures were used to establish baseline,…

The present study evaluates the immediate effects of an experimentally manipulated social comparison on the subsequent behavior of lower socioeconomic status black children four to five and seven to eight years of age. The effects of four conditions of social comparison are measured with respect to the children's self-reinforcement,…

Praise and criticism data were collected during a two-year correlational study of a selected sample of second- and third-grade teachers chosen for their consistency in producing student learning gains averaged over four years, and these data were analyzed to determine the effect that praise, criticism, rewards, and punishment had on learning…

Research has indicated that children learn material evaluated as positive more readily than negatively assessed material. This finding is termed a positive reinforcement value effect. The study extended the research in this area, focusing on the effects of intelligence, self-concept, and age on the affective learning styles of 55 children, (6-11…

Sex differences in children's reactions to failure feedback in school situations were investigated by assessing the ways in which teachers use negative evaluation in the classroom. Three aspects of teachers' evaluative feedback were studied: (1) ratio of negative to positive feedback; (2) contingency vs. noncontingency of feedback; and (3) (the…

The effects of two types of self-determined reinforcement contingencies on children's test performances were investigated and compared to each other and to externally determined contingencies. In Experiment I, fourth-grade children's test performances were measured on a curriculum of history facts, Spanish-English word pairs, and reading…

The present study was designed to determine if students would improve their test performance in order to earn the right to self-evaluate their daily tasks, and then, whether they would maintain high test performance in order to keep this privilege. A second purpose was to demonstrate a practical way in which teachers could effectively reduce the…

Examined in two studies--one involving three developmentally retarded children, the other involving two first grade children--were strategies for promoting transfer of newly acquired skills from a structured, one-to-one tutoring setting to an unstructured setting where children work independently. Before generalization training was begun, little…

A study involving 7 multiply handicapped students (6-13 years old) was conducted to shape appropriate classroom social behaviors and to maintain them with little social approval, to examine what effects reprimands had on student behavior, and to see if combination of reprimands and praise could result in good classroom behavior when reprimands…

To study the effect of motivating statements on the achievement of young children, a group of 52 first grade boys and girls was randomly divided into two groups. The experimental group was assigned a verbal task and given positive motivation on their ability to accomplish the task. The control group was merely given the assignment. Results of the…

Research on clients' perceptions of the acceptability of psychological treatments has grown out of concern for social validity and has resulted in the development of a hypothetical model to explain how individuals might select treatments. This model involves four components: (1) acceptability of treatment; (2) use of treatment; (3) integrity of…

The effects of three different environmental conditions on the frequency of self-injurious and self-stimulation behavior in 10 brain damaged, profoundly retarded children (under 12 years old) were examined employing a time-sampled behavioral observation. The environmental conditions were social interaction, high demand, and stimulus deprivation…

The effectiveness of a procedure for systematically analyzing and intervening with oral reading was investigated with three learning disabled children (10 to 11 years old). Correct and error responses in oral reading were recorded during baseline and experimental conditions (which included contingent teacher praise and antecedent modeling on words…

This study examined the effects of high, mixed, and low rates of specified sequenced teacher behaviors (specific observation followed by reinforcement) engaged in by elementary school teachers on the academic learning time-physical education (ALT-PE) of students. The high rate was defined as teacher engagement in five per minute or more episodes…