Behaviour Analysis in Educational Psychology

Kevin Wheldall, Frank Merrett, Ted Glynn, Kevin Wheldall, Frank Merrett, Ted Glynn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138723900
• eBook ISBN: 9781351755849
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Gestione comportamentale

In the early 1980s there had been a marked increase in the application of behavioural methods in schools. However, much of this work was weak conceptually and limited in its remit. Behaviour analysis has more to offer education than 'smarties' and time-out.

Originally published in 1986, this collection of twenty papers, many of them experimental, serves to demonstrate the power of behaviour analysis in a wide variety of applications. The editors stress the importance of antecedent control, as well as consequence management strategies, and illustrate their relevance in solving problems in everyday situations at school and in the home. The Editors, whose own work is well represented in this collection, are acknowledged as leading researchers in this field.

Section B.

Antecedent Control

Antecedent Control of Behaviour in Educational Contexts

TED GLYNN

Recently there has been a growing recognition within applied behavioural research of particular dimensions of antecedent control of human behaviour (Risley, 1977; McNaughton, 1980, Glynn, 1982). These dimensions comprise the ecological context or the characteristics of settings within which contingencies of reinforcement operate to shape and maintain behaviour. Contemporary research reviewed in this paper suggests that such ecological conditions or setting events, may exert just as powerful control over human behaviour in developmental and educational situations as do contingencies of reinforcement. Further, in many child development and educational contexts such as classrooms, playgrounds, daycare and residential institutions setting events may be more amenable to modification and hence may yield more efficient strategies for changing behaviour than strategies relying on contingencies or reinforcement alone. Wheldall (1981) argues that a greater concern for ecological variables in classroom management would minimise the ‘behavioural overkill’ arising from the introduction of unnecessary and time-consuming contingency management procedures. McNaughton (1980) claims that the looser control over learning afforded by the appropriate structuring of settings (rather than the tighter control required for implementing contingent reinforcement procedures) may, in the long term, be more effective and significant for gains in proficiency in reading.

Before reviewing specific studies, it is important to note that antecedent control has been conceptualised in different ways. First the physical properties or stimulus objects present in an environment can in themselves influence human behaviour. The presence of brightly coloured moving objects over an infant's crib might be expected to affect the infant's rate of looking. However, both Kantor (1970) and Bijou & Baer (1978) distinguish between stimulus objects and stimulus functions. For example, Kantor (1970) argues that particular objects can acquire specific functions for an individual neonate as soon as interactions are established with those objects and particular response functions are built up. While the correspondence between stimulus and response in simple reflex behaviour depends on biological evolution, in more complex behaviour situations there is a psychologically evolved mutuality of stimulus and response functions. Those individual response functions may be facilitated or impaired by situational or setting factors. For example using the model of Kantor and of Bijou & Baer it could be predicted that an infant's rate of vocalisation in response to a given stimulus (toy) might be strongly influenced by the presence or absence of a parent who usually reinforces the infant for all vocalisation. Similarly, the rate of child questions and parent responses might vary according to whether child and parent were at home, or in a public setting, e.g. seated on a bus. Increased responding in both these examples, while partly resulting from reinforcement contingencies applied by the adult, also results from the availability of the adult as a cue for responding in the particular setting. The essentials of these examples appear to be captured in Bijou & Baer's (1978) definition: “. . . A setting event influences an interactional sequence by altering strengths and characteristics of the particular stimulus and response functions involved in an interaction” (p. 6).

Wahler & Fox (1981) note that Bijou & Baer (1978) have extended the definition of setting events to cover not only the concurrent presence of a stimulus condition or events (e.g. adult presence as a setting event for interaction) but also to cover two further possibilities. The first extends the definition of setting events to include stimulus-response interactions (e.g. presence of an adult playing with a child, so that the adult-child play could be a setting event for cueing and reinforcing child-initiated language). The second possibility includes as setting events stimulus (or stimulus and response) events which occur totally separate in space and time (i.e. may immediately precede, rather than merely overlap with), the stimulus response relationship they influence (e.g. children will display more on-task behaviour following a rest period, than following a period of vigorous activity (Krantz & Risley, 1977).

The conceptual framework provided by Kantor (1970), Bijou & Baer (1978), and Wahler & Fox (1981) thus suggests three different classes of antecedent control of human behaviour, concurrent stimulus events, concurrent stimulus-response events, and prior stimulus or stimulus-response events. Many different educational contexts provide clear opportunities both to describe and to manipulate variables within each of these classes of antecedent control.

Concurrent Stimulus Events

Three important studies examined the effects of large-scale differences in physical environmental variables between schools. Barker & Gump (1964) carried out a broad-scale examination of the relationship between high school size and pupil participation in extra-curricular activities. While numbers of available extra-curricular activities increased as the size of schools increased, as expected, actual rate of participation decreased. Increased numbers of activities available did not result in increased participation. Barker & Gump argue that with small numbers there was a greater social pressure on individuals to participate in the smaller number of activities available. Within the context of a small school perhaps, the importance of participation of any one pupil to the success of the activity was much more salient than with the anonymous context of a larger school.

In contrast to the Barker & Gump findings Gill (1977) reported no significant effects on pupil behaviour or achievement of being taught in either conventional classrooms or variable-space (open-plan) classroom settings. Gill reported that differential teacher behaviours outweighed the simple effects of the different settings. Teacher behaviour would seem to be a very powerful factor influencing pupil behaviour, capable of overriding the effects of physical environmental (architectural variables). One further descriptive study by Russell & Bernall (1977) demonstrated clear correlations between rates of appropriate and inappropriate child behaviour at home and time of day, day of week, and rainfall (i.e. child inappropriate behaviour was greater around 3.30-5.00 pm on Fridays, and on wet days rather than dry days). The findings of Barker & Gump and Russell & Bernall point up interesting and important relationships between physical and temporal environmental variables and human behaviour. While these findings have clear implications for the design and management of school and home environments such variables are not easily or readily altered or manipulated experimentally.

Several further studies illustrate the powerful behavioural outcomes arising from the operation of more easily manipulable physical environmental variables. Quilitch, Christophersen & Risley (1977) conducted an analysis of children's use of a wide range of educational toys in child care contexts, and demonstrated that in a free choice situation specific toys varied widely in the amount of child use they occasioned. Risley (1982) has argued for a process of environmental distillation referring to the need to successively select children's play materials according to their ability to engage children at high rates. O'Rourke (1978) reports that merely supplying additional sports equipment and play materials resulted in increased rates of participation and decreased rates of disruptive behaviour on the playground of a large urban Intermediate School. However these effects were not as lasting as those reslting from supplying additional adults to initiate and participate in children's games.

Other studies have manipulated physical environmental variables within individual classrooms, for example by systematically altering seating patterns. Krantz & Risley (1977) demonstrated that disruptive behaviour during story time and during teacher demonstrations could be reduced just as effectively by providing more space between children as by implementing a positive reinforcement contingency for appropriate attending behaviour. Wheldall et al. (1981) found that in two separate classrooms on-task behaviour was consistently higher when children were seated at desks arranged in rows than when they were seated at group tables. Wheldall (1982) reports further data from as yet unpublished work which confirm these findings in three separate classes in a special school context. In these classes on-task behaviour was twice as high when children were seated individually in rows than when they were seated at group tables. However, Wheldall also reported that important increases in teacher positive comments and decreases in teachers negative comments occurred when children were seated individually in rows.

Clark (1982) reports data in support of Wheldall's findings. Clark found that individual seating arrangements resulted in increases of on-task behaviour, over the level of on-task behaviour while pupils were seated at group tables and while they were working on a carpeted floor. This pattern was replicated in a variable-space classroom with two groups of children who experienced the different seating arrangements in a different order. Although data from both the Wheldall and Clark studies demonstrate clear effects of seating arrangements on child behaviour, Wheldall's data suggest that this effect may be at least in part mediated through an indirect effect on teacher behaviour. Wheldall (1982) argues that teachers may find it easier to praise and refrain from disapproval when children are seated in rows. Perhaps this results from pupils’ on-task behaviour being easier to monitor in the rows condition. The task of scanning and discriminating on-task from off-task behaviour may be less complex when children are seated in rows.

Some evidence in support of the claim that changes in seating arrangements affect child behaviour through indirect effects on teacher behaviour is provided in a study by Moore (1980) who demonstrated that the location of children's seats markedly affected the number of questions they were asked by the teacher. In a subsequent study in progress, Moore (1982) reports that switching individual children's seating position from areas receiving either high or low rates of teacher interaction resulted in changes in the rate of interaction in both the predicted directions. This type of manipulation is readily accomplished within individual classrooms wit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Editors
• Introductory preface
• SECTION A. METHODOLOGY OF BEHAVIOUR ANALYSIS
• SECTION B. ANTECEDENT CONTROL
• SECTION C. CONTROL OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR BY ITS CONSEQUENCES
• SECTION D. CONTROL OF ACADEMIC BEHAVIOUR
• SECTION E. TRAINING TEACHERS AND PARENTS TO USE BEHAVIOURAL METHODS