Melissa Swisher, PhD, is a lecturer in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. She teaches undergraduate courses in introductory psychology, statistics, research methods, applied behavior analysis, learning, and cognitive psychology. Dr. Swisher has conducted basic behavior analytic research with rats, pigeons, and people throughout her undergraduate and graduate training. Her scholarship focuses on stimulus equivalence and basic stimulus control. She has reviewed for The Psychological Record, Behavioural Processes, and Learning & Behavior and serves on the board of editors for the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.
4 We don’t often discuss failure. We’re not supposed to fail, and we pretend that we don’t fail even when it may take multiple attempts to succeed at a task. …
As an undergraduate psychology major, I knew that I liked psychology and generally wanted to help people. But similar to most psychology majors, I didn’t know how I wanted to …
5 Some concepts in behavior analysis seem deceptively easy until learners are asked to demonstrate their understanding of that information. Time-sampling procedures provide an example of this situation in which …
I teach in one of the oldest buildings on campus as well as in one of the newest buildings on campus. Classrooms in both buildings are fine, and they each …
There are many methods to assess learner performance in class, and one of the most common methods is to administer examinations (or exams). Learners are typically given multiple-choice, true/false, short …
Students often find that learning about basic operant conditioning principles can be challenging. As operant conditioning is the foundation for understanding all basic and applied experiments as well as practical …
We typically don’t use rubrics for grading as part of behavior analytic classroom curricula, but analytic rubrics could be an efficient way to standardize grading and provide feedback on writing skills for learners at all levels. Rubrics can be developed with the specific learning objectives used in instruction and will set clear expectations for learners about the criteria for mastery performance.
The conclusions that can accurately be drawn are quite limited; we can only say that active learning (as an umbrella term) was generally more effective than lecture (as an umbrella term). However, we cannot pinpoint why active learning courses were generally more effective nor can we make claims that any specific type of active learning (e.g., group discussions, flipped classes, inquiry-based learning) is effective. We also cannot say that lecture is ineffective. For specific conclusions to be drawn (e.g., those relating to which forms of active learning are most effective), we need a systematic study of this approach by isolating and comparing defined and unambiguous features of active learning implementations.
The four reinforcement contingencies are the most fundamental principles of behavior. Unfortunately, it can be difficult for students to differentiate between the contingencies and generalize that knowledge of contingencies to …
You won’t want to miss attending the virtual SQAB and ABAI conferences this year to hear about the advances in the science of behavior analysis. SQAB occurs live May 22-23, and ABAI occurs live May 28-31.