Incentives are commonly used by individuals and organizations to initiate change. Incentives are now being employed in education to keep students in school. In an attempt to determine the effectiveness of programs that utilize incentives, an analysis was conducted of the programs in the National Dropout Prevention Center's Focus Database that…

During the 1985-86 school year, Mt. Diablo High Schools (Concord, California) implemented a new attendance policy requiring that any student with 15 days of absence (including excused) would receive a failing grade. Since then, half of the district's six high schools have adopted alternative attendance programs. In 1990, Northgate and College Park…

Tallahassee's New Adventure in Learning project seeks to show that positive thinking can generate important advances in the classroom. (Editor)

Field experiments show high fatalists respond to immediate and individual reward explanations more than to future or society reward explanations. (RB)

The study compared modified versions of systematic desensitization and covert positive reinforcement to a no-treatment control condition in the reduction of test anxiety. On an anagrams performance test, the covert reinforcement and control groups were superior to the desensitization group. (Author)

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a planned program designed to enhance the self concepts of primary children having negative self concepts. The data indicated that the self concepts of 30 children in kindergarten through grade four were enhanced through a sequentially planned program of elicitation of positive…

In order to provide closer personal contact between principal and students, author initiated a program of Special Happy Grams given by the principal in recognition of special efforts in good behavior, growth of independence, academic achievement, and originality. (Author/RK)

A study was conducted to assess the effects of verbal reinforcement on task performance of black preschool children. Subjects were 36 black children in preschool centers serving families of two income levels. The children were stratified by age, sex, and income level and were randomly assigned to four groups: (1) middle income, praise; (2) middle…

Taking children off reinforcement programs apparently does not have the detrimental effects that many believe it to have. In this study, students who had been removed from a reinforcement program two years earlier made significantly greater gains in reading achievement than students who had not been involved in any reinforcement program.…

Discussed the effects of a relatively simple token economy that used group contingency in a regular fifth-grade class setting. Results were favorable. (HMV)

Based upon the author's doctoral dissertation (University of Minnesota, 1967).

Research supported in part by Grant MH-13651-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Public Health Service.