This article describes token economy systems for use with students with severe behavioral disorders, including systems extending from the classroom into home life. Techniques for soliciting parent participation, training parents, and maintaining the system are put forth. Variations on the system and a sample checklist are also included. (PB)

Although educators often provide opportunities for students to engage in active academic responding, in many situations, students either cannot or will not respond. In the current article, we analyze the reasons students fail to respond. Practical procedures educators can use to prevent "can't do" problems are provided. "Won't do" problems are…

This study assessed farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) for extension services. The Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was used to assess the amount which farmers are willing to pay. Primary data on the demographic, socio-economic variables of farmers and their WTP were collected from 228 farmers selected randomly in a stage-wise sampling procedure…

In this article, the author examines the added value of strengths-based interventions in response to her college president's challenge that an educator should not be simply out for a talk in teaching. She redesigned her dissertation experiment to measure the impact of strengths-based teaching in two classrooms of Introduction to Public Speaking…

Presented is the final report of a program designed to train regular classroom teachers as special education resource teachers to manage the academic and social behavior problems of moderately handicapped children and act as resource teachers to the regular classroom teachers. It is noted that the project emphasized precision teaching, a process…

This paper suggests ways in which educators can help students develop responsibility, as well as academic skills and intellectual growth. The four steps in decision-making are outlined to show that decision and action should follow logically once the behavior and its consequences have been identified. A technique referred to as contracting is…

To ascertain the relevancy of behavioral psychology to those who are engaged in developmental work with college and adult students, this paper reviews articles found in several journals concerned with that discipline. The articles reviewed were chosen as representative of those pertaining to achieving academic success and are organized into five…

This case study reports the use of token reinforcement in remedial reading instruction with an eleven-year-old boy from rural Appalachia. During phase one, tokens were given for reading 50-word passages without error; token value was contingent upon the number of attempts necessary to read without error. During phase two, words missed in phase one…

The study examines goal preferences regarding emergency educational programs such as the Columbus School Without Schools Program conducted during the energy shortages of 1977. Preferences of diverse educator groups were analyzed by the multi-dimensional scaling program MDPREF. A two-dimensional solution was obtained, the first dimension being an…

Personalized systems of instruction (PSI), also called individualized instruction or contingency-managed instruction, were developed in the mid-1960s at the college level by Fred Keller, a reinforcement learning theorist. The Keller plan consists of five features: self-pacing, unit mastery, student tutors, optional motivational lectures, and…

Entitled Project Success Environment and funded by Elementary Secondary Education Act Title III, the pilot 1970-71 study included eight experimental classes with appropriate comparison classes. Following this initial effort the program was expanded to include twice the number of students within a wider age range during the second year of operation…

This study investigated the relationship between visual attending and learning in a group of 16 Head Start children from low income families. Attending behavior (defined as "eyes oriented towards the teacher and/or teaching materials for a full 5-second interval") was measured for each child during a 10-minute story period on four…

A description is given of the development and application of contingency management (CM) techniques to the educational performance of a broad cross section of adult, male prison inmates. By most standards, these inmates are judged to be at the lowest rung of the motivational ladder. Draper Correctional Center experimental and demonstration…

The discussion leader's guide to a parent education course in the mental stimulation of handicapped young children is organized by the topics of the 12 sessions: orientation, responsive program, toys as learning tools, creativity, self concept, behavior modification, discipline, language, sensory/motor development I and II, and open session.…

An interdependent group-oriented timeout ribbon procedure was effective in decreasing the inappropriate verbalizations of two groups of resource room students (grades 1-3). A timeout ribbon was removed for one minute following inappropriate verbalizations, during which time the group lost the opportunity to earn tokens for activity or tangible…