"Golden oldies" in a laboratory course in the experimental analysis of behavior.

The author built an undergrad lab course around 30 classic EAB papers from the 1930s-1960s.

Students copied the exact set-ups: lever presses, key pecks, and schedules of reinforcement.

The reading list came with step-by-step lab sheets so each week students relived a "golden oldie" experiment.

The course ran, but no data on grades or learning were reported.

The paper simply shares the book list and the author’s view that old studies are still easy to read and teach from.

Frieder et al. (2018) later asked 140 faculty what undergrads should read. They still liked Skinner, but they put the Cooper textbook at the top. The 2005 list is therefore a fun add-on, not the core.

Lattal (2022) keeps the same spirit—classic experiments—but wraps them in a six-theme history tour. You get the same articles, just with richer story-telling.

Saville et al. (2002) did a similar job three years earlier, yet for graduate students and with heavier philosophy. Together the three papers form a staircase: grad philosophy → undergrad lab → updated consensus.

If you teach a BACB course, steal the 30-paper set list and run one lab as a demo. Students see the data pattern, feel the procedure, and remember the principle. It takes one class period and costs almost nothing.