A scale to measure attitudes toward behavior modification

Abstract

Even a casual review of the literature of the past few years will indicate a proiiounced increase in interest in the application of behavior modification techniques in a great variety of settings and situations. One of the major areas of behavior modification is in the educational program. The efficacy of the technique has been espoused by many of those in teacher-training programs, and the study of behavior modification is standard fare in both undergraduate and graduate course work. It is not difficult to find in the professional literature examples of behavior modification as applied to typical educational problems, but a question exists whether the regular classroom teacher accepts the principles and concepts of behavior modification. A review of the literature for the past 5 years has not disclosed any information pertinent to the feelings of teachers toward behavior modification. There were also no indications of the availability of an instrument to evaluate these feelings. This article describes the development of a scale designed to measure the attitudes of teachers toward behavior modification. METHOD ProcedureIt was decided to use a 20-item Likert technique with a 5-point scale of strongly agree, agree, neutral or undecided, disagree, strongly disagree. Each alternative was numerically equated from 5 to 1 and scored as the sum of the numerical equivalents weighted so that the higher scores indicated the more favorable (positive) attitude.The first step in the development of the scale was to obtain a pool of statements on behavior modification that met the informal criteria for attitude statements as described by Edwards (1957, pp. 13-14). Most of these statements were written by the author, but statements also were solicited from his peers and from students. Statements that did not meet the criteria either were rewritten or discarded, and those 31 statements that survived the criteria screening were submitted to upperlevel students in a preservice education program as a preliminary administration.The results of the preliminary administration were tabulated into a matrix of subject and score for each item. A Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated between the item score and the total score on the scale minus the item score to avoid the interaction of that item's score. To maximize the internal consistency of the scale, the 20 items that showed the highest adjusted item total correlation were incorporated into the final version of the scale. All of the items selected for the final revision yielded a correlation of .47 or higher. The final version consisted of 20 statements with 13 positive and 7 negative wordings, the order of which was determined randomly. Attitude Scale below:The statements and instructions that constitute the completed scale are listed

A rose by any other name . . . : Labelling bias and attitudes toward behavior modification.

“…In the graduate sample the mean was 4.03. These mean scores are in keeping with the findings of Musgrove (1974), who surveyed 280 teachers at 20 elementary schools on their attitudes toward behavior modification. On his instrument the mean score for all teachers was 64.3 (a score of 60 indicating a neutral response).…”

Managerial Reaction to the Term Behavior Modification

“…I t is possible that a term such as behavior modification, which Luthans and Kreitner (1975) have labeled value loaded and which has been popularly publicized as the target of Congressional investigation (Behavior mod, 1974), has a negative connotation among those being introduced to its on-thejob application. For instance, Musgrove (1974), while developing a scale to measure attitudes toward behavior modification, discovered school administrators who were "anti-behavior modification." If those who are being initially introduced t o management techniques labeled behavior modif cation harbor a prejudice against it, then the learning process will be hampered or perhaps blocked altogether.…”

The Generalization of Behavioral Teacher Training

“…While a few behavioral researchers (Musgrove, 1974;Vane, 1972), have studied teachers' attitudes toward behavior modification in general, none has discussed how attitude and behavior interact in the course of a training program. The importance of the development of favorable internalized attitudes for the generalization of treatment changes must remain speculative, however, until behavioral researchers monitor and report this type of data.…”