Practitioner Development

L'enfant terrible meets the educational crisis.

Greer (1992) · Journal of applied behavior analysis 1992
★ The Verdict

We already own a proven teaching science; we just need to sell it to schools in bite-size demos.

✓ Read this if BCBAs who consult with teachers or want to expand into schools.
✗ Skip if Clinic-only BCBAs with no school contact.

01Research in Context

01

What this study did

Dougan (1992) wrote a position paper. The author said behavior analysis already owns a ready-made science of teaching. The paper urged the field to market that science to schools.

No new data were collected. The piece restated earlier claims that our teaching technology beats common classroom practice.

02

What they found

The paper found no fresh results. Instead, it restated that behavior analysis gives teachers better, tested tools. The author claimed schools just do not know about them.

The main message: we have the goods, but we pitch them poorly.

03

How this fits with other research

Lerman (2024) extends this call. Where Dougan (1992) said "market better," Lerman hands you a step-by-step blueprint for training teachers, cops, and nurses.

Eagle (1985) made a similar export pitch seven years earlier. That paper told economists to borrow behavior principles; Dougan (1992) tells educators the same thing.

Morris (2014) gives the how-to. After Dougan (1992) asked for better marketing, Morris (2014) shows exactly how to place behavior-analytic articles in mainstream education journals.

04

Why it matters

You already use task analysis, reinforcement, and data sheets. This paper says stop keeping them in-clinic. Package your lessons for teachers the way Lerman (2024) packages training for outsiders. Next time a teacher asks for help, hand over a tiny, ready-to-run pilot with graphs. Show one skill growing fast. That single demo is the marketing Dougan (1992) said we never do.

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Pick one skill, run a five-day mini-intervention with a teacher, and graph the data for them.

02At a glance

Intervention
not applicable
Design
theoretical
Finding
not reported

03Original abstract

The results [of applications of behavior anal- ysis to education] are interesting but are akin to those produced by an infant who acquires a hammer and then discovers that everything in the environment needs hammering. (Brophy, 1983, p. 11) Brophy's statement was part of a rebuttal to a paper published in the Educational Researcher over 8 years ago In that paper, I made four claims: (a) There was a science of pedagogy based on a science of behavior, (b) the results of behavior analysis had been more fruitful in producing a science of pedagogy than had educational research, (c) this difference in results was due to the characteristic scientific practices used by each group, and (d) educational researchers had been remiss in ignoring the findings and epistemology of the science of behavior. I stated that there was a science and technology of pedagogy awaiting dis- semination.

Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1992 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1992.25-65