R5

Question: How do you establish a system of rewards without sacrificing students’ internal motivation?

Quotation: “Primes and prompts must then be carefully “vanished” until the behavior occurs without help. At that point, the reinforcing consequences of being right are most effective in building and sustaining an enduring repertoire” (Skinner, 1984, p. 951).

Connection: Skinner’s discussion of reinforcement was relatable to my own experiences in working with students with disabilities.  I have been working on a long-term case with an individual with Asperger’s.  This individual is extremely motivated by external and somewhat excessive rewards provided by his parents.  These rewards have occurred weekly over a period of three years in which the parents did not decrease the frequency and/or intensity of the reward itself.  His parents decided this summer that the reward system had become too expensive and therefore drastically changed the frequency of receiving the reward.  The sudden shift in his reinforcement schedule greatly upset the student, and his behavior both at home and at school significantly declined to the point of harm to others and extreme outbursts.  This example highlights the information provided in the earlier quotation, indicating the importance of gradually fading away reinforcements and supports to lead to complete removal of them.  Further, this specific situation demonstrates the many negative consequences of excessive and incorrectly administered reinforcement.  Providing students with extreme reinforcements or rewards greatly diminishes their likelihood of ever appreciating the completion of a task for the sake of a feeling of accomplishment, thereby decreasing students’ internal motivation.  The question then becomes, how do we insure that reinforcement systems build students’ internal motivation, or the desire to complete tasks because we feel good having accomplished something?   

Outside Connection: I have taken several courses throughout my educational career that have discussed the basic principles of reinforcement.  Through this coursework, we have discussed appropriate and proportional reinforcements for behavior.  Reinforcements should not be excessive, should be proportional to the behavior, should have an initial high frequency and provide ample opportunity for success (i.e., contingencies should be set at a level that is initially easy to obtain) and then gradually taper off as the frequency of correct completion of the behavior increases (Shinn, Walker, & Stoner, 2002).  In addition to these general rules of reinforcement, there is a multitude of guidelines that should be understood and used when introducing any type of reinforcement schedule.  These guidelines discuss the importance of providing students opportunities to succeed, as I discussed in my last response, as well as the extreme importance of eventually fading out reinforcers.  I think that Skinner would agree that it is crucial to fade out reinforcement; however, his statement that “abundant reinforcement is enough” (p. 952) is misleading to individuals who may not have as much training in appropriate reinforcement strategies.  For example, in the case described previously, it is evident that the parents of the student did not have enough awareness of reinforcement principles to know the importance of gradually fading out the reward.  By applying the guidelines described, we can hope to increase appropriate behaviors, as well as increase internal motivation for the completion of a task as the reinforcers are eventually removed, and therefore the only reinforcement remaining is that of a sense of accomplishment.   

References

Shinn, M. A., Walker, H. M., Stoner, G. (2002). Interventions for Academic and Behavior Problems II: Preventative and Remedial Approaches. Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologist