THE EFFECTS OF TEACHER ATTENTION ON FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS IN A KINDERGARTEN CLASS¹

Abstract

A kindergarten class, composed of five girls ages 4.8 to 6 yr, participated in the study. In each of 20 daily sessions a sequence of 10 simple instructions was given to the class, In baseline sessions, the teacher did not interact with the students, other than to give instructions. During these sessions, the children followed the teacher's instructions 60% of the time. When the teacher began attending to each child if she followed an instruction, the mean percentage of instructions followed increased to 78%. Subsequently, the teacher again employed the baseline procedures and the percentage of instructions followed decreased to 68.7%. When the teacher again provided attention dependent on the children's following the instructions, the percentage of instructions followed increased to 83.7%. The results are consistent with research that has treated instructions as discriminative stimuli. The general findings are that consequences of instructed behavior determine the extent to which the instructions are followed.

A Brief Review of Classroom Group‐oriented Contingencies

“…For example, based on Premack's principle of reinforcement, the arrangement of free-time or special activities contingent upon the individual behaviors of all students in a classroom has been reported to increase desirable classroom behavior (Homme, deBaca, Devine, Steinhorst, and Rickert, 1963;Osborne, 1969;Wasik, 1970) and to improve academic performance (Hopkins, Schutte, and Garton, 1971;Lovitt, Guppy, and Blattner, 1969). Likewise, making teacher attention contingent upon the individual behaviors of all students in a classroom has been reported to increase the rate of study behavior (Hall, Panyon, Rabon, and Broden, 1968;Kazdin and Klock, 1973), to decrease the rate of disruptive behavior (Hall, Fox, Willard, Goldsmith, Emerson, Owen, Davis, and Porcia, 1971;Madsen, Becker, Thomas, Koser, and Plager, 1968;McAllister, Stachowiak, Baer, and Conderman, 1969), and to increase the rate of following instructions (Schutte and Hopkins, 1970). Finally, the use of individually administered token reinforcers for whole classes has been reported to increase the rate of study behavior and academic performance (Bednar, Zelhart, Greathouse, and Weinberg, 1970;Bijou, Birnbrauer, Kidder, and Tague, 1966;Birnbrauer, Bijou, Wolf, and Kidder, 1965;Birnbrauer and Lawler, 1964;Bushell, Wrobel, and Michaelis, 1968;Chadwick and Day, 1971;Clark, Lachowicz, and Wolf, 1968;Ferritor, Buckholdt, Hamblin, and Smith, 1972;Glynn, 1970;Haring and Hauck, 1969;Hewett, Taylor, and Artuso, 1967;Knapczyk and Livingston, 1973;McIntire, Davis, and Pumroy, 1970;McKenzie, Clark, Wolf, Kothers, and Benson, 1968;McLaughlin and Malaby, 1972a;Nolen, Kunzelmann, and Haring, 1967;Wolf et al, 1970;Wolf, Giles, and Hal...…”

Role Playing to Train Elementary Teachers to Use a Classroom Management “Skill Package”1

“…This work is part of a body of research that has assessed the value of a wide variety of individual component skills useful for classroom management. Much of this literature has focused on the systematic use of teacher approval as a means of replacing disruptiveness with on-task behavior (Broden, Bruce, Mitchell, Carter, and Hall, 1970;Hall, Lund, and Jackson, 1968;Hall, Panyon, Rabon, and Broden, 1968;Madsen, Becker, and Thomas, 1968;McAllister, Stachowiak, Baer, and Conderman, 1969; Shutte and Hopkins, 1970) as well as the use of teacher disapproval to reduce inappropriate classroom behavior (Hall, Axelrod, Foundopoulos, Shellman, Campbell, and Cranston, 1971;Miller, 1974, McAllister et al, 1969;O'Leary, Kaufman, Kass, and Drabman, 1970 (WINTER 1975) growing body of literature examining such variables as the redistribution of teacher attention (Sanders and Hanson, 1971), prompting skills (Knapczyk and Livingston, 1974), rules (Herman and Tramontana, 1971;Madsen, Becker, and Thomas, 1968;O'Leary, Becker, Evans, and Saudargas, 1969), nonverbal teacher approval (Kazdin and Klock, 1973), and vicarious social reinforcement (Broden et al, 1970;Kounin and Gump, 1958;Kazdin, 1973). Although the results of research on the systematic application of a variety of social skills by teachers in the classroom have been encouraging, it is apparent that a shift of emphasis from component analysis to the integration of these components into a useful "skill package" is needed.…”

THE EFFECTS OF EXPERIMENTER'S INSTRUCTIONS, FEEDBACK, AND PRAISE ON TEACHER PRAISE AND STUDENT ATTENDING BEHAVIOR1

“…A number of recent studies have investigated the effects of contingent teacher attention on various student behaviors, i.e., attending, instruction following, verbal, and disruptive behavior in the public school classroom (Hall, Lund, Jackson, 1968;Hall, Panyan, Rabon, and Broden, 1968;Shutte and Hopkins, 1970;Thomas, Becker, and Armstrong, 1968 Baer (1970), used a consistent training procedure to modify teacher attending in preschool settings.…”