Effects of Task Difficulty and Type of Contingency on Students' Allocation of Responding to Math Worksheets

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2004

Abstract

This study investigated students' allocation of responding as a function of task difficulty and type of reinforcement contingency (i.e., accuracy based or time based). Four regular education fourth-grade students were presented with two identical stacks of easy and then difficult math worksheets using a reversal design. Regardless of condition, completing problems from each stack of worksheets was reinforced according to a different contingency; one required correct completion of math problems (accuracy based) and one required on-task behavior (time based). Results suggested that 3 of the 4 students preferred the accuracy-based contingency when given easy material and the time-based contingency when given difficult material. One student allocated more responding to the accuracy-based contingency when given easy problems but did not show a clear preference for either contingency with difficult problems. The implications of these findings for designing reinforcement-based programs for tasks of varying difficulty are discussed.

Publication Title

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis

Volume

37

Issue

1

First Page

53

Last Page

65

PubMed ID

15154215

Comments

This article was published in Journal of applied behavior analysis, Volume 37, Issue 1, Pages 53-65.

The published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1901/jaba.2004.37-53.

Copyright © 2004.

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