PSY 420 Week 5 Social Learning and Behavior Change Programs Example

Teams, Points and Peer Models: Social Learning and a Classwide Behavior Change Program

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

PSY/420: Theories of Behavior

Week 5 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The student teacher, children, classroom and data are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources listed.

Earlier weeks focused on Jamal's individual behaviors. By midsemester, Ms. Ortega noticed that several other students also called out and wandered during writing, and that the class as a whole lost minutes of instruction each day. This final paper designs a classwide program combining social learning principles and group contingencies, then reviews its results and ethics.

Social Learning in the Classroom

Bandura (1977) argued that most human behavior is learned by observing others and the consequences they receive, not only through direct reinforcement. Learners attend to models, remember what they see, reproduce it when able and are motivated by expected outcomes. Vicarious reinforcement, seeing others rewarded, increases the likelihood of imitation, and people also regulate their own behavior by setting standards and rewarding themselves.

In Ms. Ortega's room, students watch one another constantly. When classmates who call out get immediate responses, others learn that calling out works. A program that makes hand raising and staying on task visibly successful for peers should change what students learn by watching.

The Program Design

Target behaviors are defined as calling out without being called on and leaving one's seat without permission, the same definitions used for Jamal. During a two-week baseline, Ms. Ortega counted both behaviors for the whole class during three discussion periods and three writing periods per week. The class averaged forty-two combined incidents per period.

The intervention is a version of the Good Behavior Game. The class of twenty-six is divided into three mixed teams. During game periods, each incident earns the team a mark on the board. Every team with five or fewer marks at the end of the period earns a privilege, such as five minutes of a favorite class activity, choosing music during cleanup or a sticker for the team chart. All teams can win; teams do not compete against each other.

Evidence for the Game

Barrish et al. (1969) introduced the game in a fourth-grade classroom with frequent out-of-seat and talking-out behavior. The class was split into two teams, and rule violations during math and then reading periods led to marks, with privileges for teams below a criterion. Using a multiple-baseline design across the two periods, the researchers showed that disruptive behavior dropped sharply in each period only when the game was introduced there, demonstrating that the game produced the change.

Kellam et al. (2008) followed students in Baltimore who had been randomly assigned by classroom in first and second grade to the Good Behavior Game or to standard practice. By young adulthood, males who had played the game, especially those who had been highly aggressive in first grade, showed lower rates of drug and alcohol use disorders, regular smoking, antisocial personality disorder and violent and criminal behavior. The findings suggest that a simple classroom program can have effects far beyond the school year.

A mark on the board for calling out cost Jamal's team a privilege; a hand raised and praised in front of his team became the behavior worth copying.

Social Learning Within Teams

The game uses modeling in several ways. Team members who raise hands and stay seated model those behaviors for teammates. When a team earns its privilege, the whole class sees good behavior rewarded, vicarious reinforcement. Peers also provide prompts and praise: Jamal's teammates began whispering "hand" when he started to call out and cheering when the team won, turning peers into sources of reinforcement for the desired behavior.

Results

During four weeks of the game, combined incidents fell from an average of forty-two per period at baseline to eleven. Jamal's own call-outs fell from about ten per discussion period to two or three, and his out-of-seat behavior during writing, already improving under his individual plan, stayed low. A brief return to baseline conditions for two days, agreed on with the cooperating teacher, saw incidents rise to thirty, and they fell again when the game resumed, strengthening confidence that the game caused the change. A graph with baseline, game, reversal and game phases shows the pattern clearly.

Treatment Integrity

A program works only if it is carried out as planned. Ms. Ortega used a short checklist each period: rules stated at the start, marks recorded within seconds of each incident, privileges delivered the same day. On days the cooperating teacher ran the game, Ms. Ortega observed and checked the list, and fidelity stayed above ninety percent.

Ethical Safeguards

Group contingencies carry risks. Peers may blame or pressure a student whose behavior costs the team. Ms. Ortega set rules: no one may criticize a teammate for a mark, teams are rebalanced every two weeks so no group is always disadvantaged and any student who finds the game distressing can talk with her privately. The privileges are small and positive; no team loses existing class time. Parents received a letter describing the program. Jamal's individual plan continued alongside the game, so he was not left to carry his team.

Maintenance and Generalization

Gains should last when the program ends. Ms. Ortega plans to thin the game gradually, first raising the mark threshold, then playing on random days and finally replacing it with occasional class celebrations. Teaching students to monitor their own hand raising with a simple tally supports self-regulation, the part of social learning theory that keeps behavior going without external rewards.

Reflection on the Course

Across the semester, the course's ideas built on one another: the history of behaviorism suggested looking at the environment rather than a label, conditioning principles explained how behaviors are learned and maintained, schedules and punishment research shaped the home plan, functional assessment revealed what Jamal's seat-leaving achieved and social learning turned the whole class into models for one another.

Conclusion

A classwide team game, grounded in social learning theory and supported by a classic classroom study and a long-term follow-up, cut disruption sharply in Ms. Ortega's room and helped Jamal without singling him out. Defined behaviors, baseline data, a reversal phase, ethical safeguards and a plan for fading make it a complete behavior change program.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Prentice Hall.

Barrish, H. H., Saunders, M., & Wolf, M. M. (1969). Good behavior game: Effects of individual contingencies for group consequences on disruptive behavior in a classroom. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2(2), 119-124. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1969.2-119

Kellam, S. G., Brown, C. H., Poduska, J. M., Ialongo, N. S., Wang, W., Toyinbo, P., Petras, H., Ford, C., Windham, A., & Wilcox, H. C. (2008). Effects of a universal classroom behavior management program in first and second grades on young adult behavioral, psychiatric, and social outcomes. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 95(Suppl. 1), S5-S28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2008.01.004