Feedback in classroom behavior modification: effects on the target and her classmates.
Plain teacher feedback can cut one child’s disruption and lift the whole classroom mood.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The teacher told one disruptive girl how she was doing. No prizes. No timeout. Just quick feedback.
The class was regular elementary. The teacher used an ABAB design. Feedback on, feedback off, on, off.
They watched the girl and her classmates. They counted disruptions and friendly talk.
What they found
The girl’s disruptions dropped when feedback was on. They rose again when it stopped.
Peers also behaved better. They made more nice comments. The girl became more liked.
Simple words from the teacher helped the whole room.
How this fits with other research
Chinnappan et al. (2020) later added clear rules to the feedback. Problem behavior still fell below ten percent of the day. The 1974 study shows the bare-bones version still works.
Bickel et al. (1984) let kindergarten peers hand out tokens. Peer monitors cut disruption without teacher talk. Both papers show classmates can share in the gain when one child is targeted.
Lydersen et al. (1974) did the opposite move: they paid kids for accurate reading. Disruption almost vanished. That study used tokens; the target study used only words. Tokens give faster control, yet words alone still help.
Why it matters
You can lower problem behavior tomorrow by giving quick, private feedback. No need for a prize bin or point sheet. Tell the student the count of call-outs at the end of each period. Watch the ripple: peers calm down and the child gains friends. Try it first with one student before adding rules or tokens.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A behavior modification program that employed feedback with no additional contingencies was initiated and withdrawn in an ABAB design on a target child within a classroom. The disruptive behavior of the target child as well as that of her peers was monitored. Additionally, the sociometric status of the target child was recorded. Finally, the positive and negative comments made to the target by her teacher and her peers were related to initiation and withdrawal of the feedback contingency. Results indicate that (1) feedback alone may be an effective behavior modification procedure, (2) the disruptive behavior of the target's classmates changed, even though they were not directly treated, (3) sociometric status of the target was altered by behavioral contingencies, (4) positive comments by classmates to the target increased, and (5) negative comments from the teacher to the target child decreased.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1974 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1974.7-591