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Learning Guide: Chapter Seven-Behavioral

Learning Theory: Operant Conditioning
Below you will find study questions and graphic organizers to help you
organize the information for Chapter 7. Watch the podcast and read
the indicated sections of your text, especially the “Suggestions for
Teaching” sections. In “Suggestions for Teaching” (and in the videos),
you will see how these concepts can be applied to an actual classroom
(and to the classroom scenario questions you will encounter on the
exam).
To jump to specific sections or pages, you may type the page number
into the “search this course” function or click on “chapter contents,”
which is in the top left once you click into the textbook.

1. Read Section 7-1a (p. 239) and Section 7-1b (p. 240-245), focusing on the basic
principles of Skinner’s operant conditioning. Explain positive and negative reinforcement,
punishment, generalization, discrimination, extinction, and shaping below:

Concept Definitions and examples

Strengthening a behavior (increasing the probability that is will reoccur) by

presenting a positive stimulus immediately after the behavior has occurred
Positive
reinforcement

Negative Strengthening a behavior (increasing the probability that it will reoccur) by

reinforcement removing a negative stimulus immediately after the behavior has occured
reducing the frequency of an undesired behavior through the use of an
Punishment aversive stimulus

When an individual learns to make a particular response to a particular

Generalization stimulus and then makes the same or similar response in a slightly different
situation
When an individual learns to notice the unique aspects of seemingly similar
Discrimination
situations and thus respond differently
 Reducing complex behaviors into a sequence of more simple behaviors.
Reinforcing successive approximation to the complex behavior

Shaping

2. Read pages 244-245, focusing on Schedules of Reinforcement. Explain these below:

Fixed Interval: reinforcement of a desired behavior occurs only after a

specific amount of time has elapsed

Variable Interval: reinforcement of desired behavior occurs only after

variable intervals of time have elapsed

Schedules of
Reinforcement

Fixed Ratio: reinforcement of a desired behavior occurs only after a

specific number of those responses are made

Variable Ratio: reinforcement of a desired behavior occurs only after

variable numbers of responses are made

3. Read Section 7-2b (p. 249-255) and “Suggestions for Teaching” (p. 255-259), focusing on
educational applications of operant conditioning. Give classroom examples below:

How could you use this in the classroom? Describe a specific example in
Concept
detail.

1. Select the target behavior.

2. Obtain reliable baseline data (that is, determine how often the target
 behavior occurs in the normal course of events).
3. Select potential reinforcers.
4. In small steps, reinforce successive approximations of the target behavior
Shaping
each time they occur.
5. Reinforce the newly established target behavior each time it occurs.
6. Reinforce the target behavior on a variable reinforcement schedule.

Once you have decided on a sequence of objectives and a method of

reinforcement, you are ready to shape the target behavior. For example, you
can start by reinforcing the student for completing five problems (25 percent)
each day for several consecutive days. Then you reinforce the student for
Premack
completing five problems and starting a sixth (a fixed ratio schedule). Then you
principle
reinforce the student for six completed problems, and so on. Once the student
consistently completes at least 85 percent of the problems, you provide
reinforcement after every fifth worksheet on the average (a variable ratio
schedule).
students can accumulate check marks, gold stars, or happy faces and “cash
them in” at some later date for any one of several reinforcers. Such instructional
Token
activities as doing math worksheets, working at the computer, engaging in
economy
leisure reading, and playing academic games have proven to be effective
reinforcers in token economies 
 A contingency contract is simply a more formal method of specifying desirable
behaviors and consequent reinforcement. The contract, which can be written or
verbal, is an agreement worked out by two people (teacher and student, parent
Contingency
and child, counselor and client) in which one person (student, child, client)
contracting
agrees to behave in a mutually acceptable way, and the other person (teacher,
parent, counselor) agrees to provide a mutually acceptable form of
reinforcement.
The most straightforward approach is to ignore the undesired response. If a
Extinction student bids for your attention by clowning around, for instance, you may
discourage repetition of that sort of behavior by ignoring it.
Time-out is an effective means of reducing or eliminating undesired behaviors,
particularly those that are aggressive or disruptive, for both students who do and
Time out
who do not have a disability. The rules for the procedure should be clearly
explained, and after being sentenced to time-out (which should last no more
than five minutes), a child should be given reinforcement for agreeable, helpful
behavior
is similar to time-out in that it involves the removal of a stimulus. It is often used
with a token economy. With this procedure, a certain amount of positive
Response
reinforcement (for example, 5 percent of previously earned tokens) is withdrawn
cost
every time a child makes an undesired response.