Some Collateral Effects of Four Academic Reinforcement Regimes

Abstract

A multielement baseline, or alternating treatments design, was used to examine social collateral effects of non-contingent reinforcement, individualized reinforcement, group consequation and competitive reinforcement for academic performance. Four elementary school students selected by their teachers for vocabulary deficiencies completed the study. The findings provide strong evidence supporting the conclusion that while incentive systems raise quiz scores and some appropriate task related behaviors, they also increase socially undesirable cheating. Furthermore, cheating controls did not adequately suppress cheating, suggesting the need to provide systematic, effective study skills training to students, rather than allow them to learn adventitious, sophisticated methods of cheating.