A description of teacher-student verbal interactions in a resource room versus regular classrooms.
More teacher instructions and fewer rule comments equal better kid compliance in any classroom.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The author watched one teacher work with the same kids in two places.
One place was the resource room. The other was the regular class.
Every word between teacher and kids was written down and sorted into types.
What they found
In the resource room the teacher gave more clear instructions.
Kids followed those instructions more often.
Regular class had more chat about rules and less doing.
How this fits with other research
Gardner et al. (2009) showed that simple tools like response cards boost kid talk and test scores.
Hersh (1990) saw the same thing without any tool—just more teacher mands did the job.
McKenna et al. (2017) taught teachers to replace problem behavior with useful mands.
Their kids behaved better, matching the high compliance seen in the resource room.
Lerman et al. (1995) warned that mand teaching needs planned motivation.
The resource room already had that plan built in.
Why it matters
You can raise compliance tomorrow by shifting your own words.
Give short, clear mands instead of long rule reminders.
Check if the task lets the kid actively respond.
If you are in a regular class, borrow the resource-room style: high mand, high response, quick praise.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The focus of this study was the description and classification of verbal operants as described by Skinner (1957) that were used by a resource room teacher and two regular education teachers, the compliance responses of two students identified as learning disabled who attended all three classes, and the actual tasks that existed in each setting. These descriptions were used to compare the similarities and differences that may account for student success in a resource classroom and lack of success in mainstream classrooms. The results indicated that the verbal operants could be used to determine the tasks that existed in each setting. Comparisons showed that the greatest differences among the settings existed in the type of "mand" stated, the proportion of instructional to management "mands," the frequency of compliance to instructional "mands," and the teacher consequence for compliance or non-compliance with "mands."
The Analysis of verbal behavior, 1990 · doi:10.1007/BF03392851