Darrel E. Bostow

Efficacy of interactive, automated programmed instruction in nutrition education for cancer prevention

Abstract Ninety‐two undergraduates were assigned into groups to evaluate the effectiveness of interactive, computer‐delivered programmed instruction for nutrition education on the topic of diet and cancer compared to traditional passive modes of instruction. Students were monitored for knowledge gains by means of a single 50‐item test and an application task, using a 4‐day diet record, administered 4 weeks prior to and 3 weeks after intervention. Results indicated that although subjects in the interactive group took nearly twice as long to complete the program, having the opportunity to respond to program blanks, this group produced significantly greater knowledge gains and lowered their fat intake by 41.8% compared to 26.1 % reduction in fat intake in the noninteractive computer group and 18.6% in the passive prose text groups. Results suggest that interactive, computer‐delivered, programmed instruction can be a very important adjunct to health care and cancer prevention programs at high schools and univ...

Computers and pedagogy: Replacing telling with interactive computer-programmed instruction

Programmed instruction has been overlooked as a way of implementing more intensive application of learning principles, possibly because it has not been well understood. Today, most of the hardware problems of past teaching machines have been solved. Instructors can now expand their effectiveness and productivity by shifting to the creation of both classroom tests and computer-interactive tutorials, a change that would leave more time for personal interaction with students. But a better understanding of the contingency of reinforcement and the science in which this concept has evolved is necessary. The computer as a teaching machine has yet to be fully exploited.

Increasing Assignment Completion and Accuracy Using a Daily Report Card Procedure.

Home-based reinforcement techniques have been used successfully to decrease a number of disruptive classroom behaviors. Few studies have been conducted, however, examining the effects of home-based reinforcement as a tool to increase positive school performance. This study examined the effects of a daily report card procedure designed to increase the completion and accuracy of in-class assignments in two youngsters described as having a behavioral history of difficulty in completing seat work, a problem commonly encountered in elementary school classes. The use of the procedure produced immediate significant changes in rates of both completion and accuracy for the two participants in the study. Results and problems of using the home-based reinforcement procedure are discussed.

CONTINGENCY-MANAGED COLLEGE INSTRUCTION: EFFECTS OF WEEKLY QUIZZES ON PERFORMANCE ON EXAMINATION

Students from a 10-wk. undergraduate course in educational psychology were randomly divided into two groups containing 25 and 24 students respectively. The two groups attended class together, experienced the same lecture-discussion sessions, and were required to take mid-term and final examinations over assigned content. However, one group was required to take weekly quizzes immediately prior to class sessions. Differences in performance of the two groups on the mid-term and final examinations were statistically significant and educationally important, the weekly quiz group scoring an average of approximately one letter grade better on both examinations.

Increasing word recognition and math ability in a severely learning‐disabled student with token reinforcers

A two-part experiment was conducted in which a youth who was diagnosed as severely learning disabled was treated for a lack of reading and math skills. Token reinforcers were delivered for correct responses to a structured set of math problems and sight words. The subject reached a 90% correct response rate following implementation of a changing criterion experimental design. Part two of the study produced a 100% achievement level for the most difficult multiplication and division items. Results imply that some behaviors identified as learning disabilities may be treatable using motivational strategies.

The personal life of the behavior analyst.

The human species faces crises of critical proportions. Excessive population, global warming, and the anticipated descent from peak fossil-fuel extraction promise to change our future in far-reaching ways. Operant conditioning prepares the individual for a world similar to the selecting past, but our world is changing more rapidly than our adaptation. As individuals, we cannot make substantial changes in the world at large because we do not control enough reinforcers, but we can turn to the sources of our personal behavior and manipulate them. We will need help. Better organized social networks and the self-management techniques they support can promote immediate changes in consumption at home, work, and moving about in our personal worlds. Surprisingly, consuming less can lead to more satisfying and happier lives, but a better understanding of reinforcement contingencies is necessary. We can recover the strengthening effects of personal daily accomplishments that are eroded when conditioned generalized reinforcers intervene. When we get our own personal lives in order we can reduce our carbon footprints, restore the connections between our behavior and its strengthening effects, and become models worthy of imitation.

Verbal responses to past events: Intraverbal relations, or tacts to private events?

Seventy-five undergraduate students worked through a computer program which taught them to correctly identify four solid geometry figures. The video screen background color was incidently different for each figure. Later, when given a colorless background, students were asked to say what color accompanied the instructional frames for each superimposed figure. Taken as a whole, the 75 students correctly recalled the previously paired colors 53% of the time (p<.0001) when compared to a random probability of 25% (a replication of the experiment produced similar results). Results showed great variability from one student to another in the ability to recall colors but scores did not correlate with gender or performance in the course. Successful responding to “absent” colors was assumed to be the product of multiple variables, among these being the possibilities of conditioned seeing and intraverbal relations acquired prior to and during the tutorial.

Efficacy of interactive, automated, programmed-instruction in nutrition education

Ninety-two undergraduates were assigned into groups to evaluate the effectiveness of interactive, computer-delivered programmed instruction for nutrition education on the topic of diet and cancer compared to traditional passive modes of instruction. Students were monitored for knowledge gains by means of a single 50-item test and an application task, using a 4-day diet record, administered 4 weeks prior to and 3 weeks after intervention. Results indicated that although subjects in the interactive group took nearly twice as long to complete the program, having the opportunity to respond to program blanks, this group produced significantly greater knowledge gains and lowered their fat intake by 41.8% compared to 26.1% reduction in fat intake in the noninteractive computer group and 18.6% in the passive prose text groups. Results suggest that interactive, computer-delivered, programmed instruction can be a very important adjunct to health care and cancer prevention programs at high schools and university settings.

Effects of Tone Cessation and Warning Signal Duration on Temporal Responding in an Avoidance Procedure

Six albino rats responded by lever-pressing to avoid grid shock in a free-operant, signaled avoidance situation. Tone cessation was the warning signal for 3 Ss while tone onset was the warning signal for a fourth S. The distribution of avoidance responses during successive reductions of the response-to-warning signal interval indicated a temporal discrimination during the warning signal. Immediate stimulus control, i.e., occurrence of the greatest amount of avoidance responses immediately following the occurrence of the warning signal, was not observed.