Study of the influence of various types of incentives upon learning

The present review of the problem of incentives to learning gives some indication of the vast field which this subject covers, and of the comparatively minute amount of thorough-going research which has as yet been undertaken in the field. The value of a greater understanding of the incentive problem is clear if the studies made upon the wide discrepancies which exist between the A.Q. and the I.Q. can be used as a basis for judgment. Attention, intention, and attitude appear to be important factors in the learning process and if these can be increased and improved upon for good by the use of wisely administered incentives the case for each end every type of incentive is strengthened. The past quarter of a century has witnessed an amazing growth in the study of the underlying factors which determine man's behaviour. As these factors become better understood and classified the problem of relating environmental stimuli to them in order to obtain desired results becomes apparent. This relationship tends to present the incentive problem in a new light, as incentives come no longer to be considered as isolated factors in human behaviour but as closely allied elements, or better still as component parts of the total problem of human motivation. A review of the present existent theories of motivation show at least several fundamental urges or drives dominant in man and sensitive to external stimuli. Regardless of the interpretation given them by the various schools of psychology, the existence of certain fundamental motivating factors such as the desire for social approval, pugnacity etc. are recognized by most to be powerful determining elements in man's behaviour. The various types of expression which these inner drives take are important aspects of the problem of human behaviour. The better they become understood the more possibility is given to the hope of directing man's activity into desired channels. It has been pointed out in this study that if man's behaviour is determined by inner drives, urges, or instincts attempts to stimulate activity must take these into account and ally the external situation with the latent innate tendencies which in turn stimulate the individual into activity. External situations which do this have been classified as incentives. An analysis of the problem of incentives reveals several attributes which may be associated with them. Foremost among these is this factor made clear in the definition of incentives as used in this study, of the close relationship between incentives and the motivating elements in life. It has been suggested that this may account for a second rather generally recognized aspect of the incentive problem, that of the inter-dependence and inter-relationship. of the various incentives themselves. It has been pointed out further that before any incentive can be properly evaluated it must be considered in lip:ht of the total situation. of which it is a part. Moreover it must be recognized that the value of an incentive may differ at different times and in varying circumstances. Many incentives are thus far. little understood except to be vaguely recognized as being possible sources of stimuli. Others which are more generally recognized and which lend themselves more readily to research have been studied to some degree. The fore-going review of this experimental work reveals a great amount of material but one is readily struck by the lack of unity and thorough-going character of the research on any single incentive. Because of this fact an attempt has been made in this study to confine the experimental investigations to one type of incentive, namely, competition, and by so doing attempt to aid in the presentation of a more complete analysis of the development of the competitive spirit in children and adults. Previous studies have revealed that the competitive impulse probably makes its appearance at the age of three or four years, usually resulting in a decrease in output of work until about the age of five when the child begins to exert positive effort to out-do his fellow-worker and thus increase his efficiency. By the age of six it is thought that 90. of all children have the competitive impulse well developed. The investigations of this study dealt with three different age groups, namely, 9.5 years, 12 years, and university age. 'From the results obtained and insofar as competition was present as an incentive with the type of problem employed in this study, the following conclusions may be drawn regarding competition as an incentive: I. With children of 9.5 years of age both group competition and individual competition of the type employed in this study are effective in stimulating a greater amount of learning than results from mere practice. Group competition, however, has a greater effect than does individual competition. II. With 12 year old children both types of competition are also effective but individual competition more so than group competition. III. It appears from the present studies that girls are slightly more favorably affected both by competition and by practice than are boys. ion an IV. Superior subjects among older children tend to be less favorably affected by group competition than younger children of superior ability. The latter appear to be highly stimulated by it. Individual competition. proved to be more effective with superior children of the older groups than with those of the younger group. With inferior subjects individual competition produces a lower percentage of increase than does either group competition or mere practice. This was true in all three age groups studied. V. Contrary to prevalent belief the presence of competition as an incentive tends to increase rather than decrease accuracy. VI. Learning which takes place under the influence of competition as an incentive has a permanent effect both after one month and three month intervals. The percentage of retention is greater in the case of the older children than of the younger, in the type of learning and under the conditions employed in this study. There remains much to be done in the way of experimental research before any adequate summary of the problem of competition as an incentive can be given. Further investigations are needed with adult subjects. The inadequacy of the present study dealing with adults, and of those carried on by one or two other investigators serve to emphasize this need. Other types of learning need to be tested under the influence of competition; the relationship between the I.Q. and responses to competition needs investigation.; and many comparative studies should be made between the effects of competition and other incentives. It is hoped that some of these investigations may be undertaken at a later date. In summary, the competitive impulse, well-developed at the age of six appears to grow in strength throughout childhood and at the age of nine expresses itself most strongly in the form of response to group competition. At the age of twelve the emphasis appears to have shifted and individual competition proves to be more stimulating than group competition, at least in the type of problem used in this study. Indications suggest that perhaps as age increases the effect of group competition diminishes, and other factors enter in which have a strong additional incentive value. An understanding of what these may be and their relative strengths awaits further research

Conducting a TPSR Program for an Underserved Girls' Summer Camp

El modelo de Enseñanza de la Responsabilidad Personal y Social (Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility, TPSR; Hellison, 1995, 2011) se ha utilizado en muchas clases de gimnasia y en programas extraescolares. Por lo general, estos programas se han llevado a cabo con grupos retos que hube de afrontar, los éxitos percibidos y, en general, las lecciones extraídas). El artículo concluye con una sección que esboza el segundo año del programa, centrándose específicamente en los cambios programáticos y en las ideas y conclusiones de cara a futuros programas mixtos o sólo de chicos (por ejemplo, el Proyecto Esfuerzo de Tom Martinek en Greensboro, NC: El Club de Entrenamiento de Dave Walsh en San Francisco, CA), y las publicaciones relativas a programas realizados sólo con chicas son muy escasas. Por este motivo, cuando en la primavera de 2010 un refugio-hogar para mujeres me pidió un programa de actividad física para un campamento de verano sólo para chicas,me entusiasmó la idea de usar TPSR con esa población.En este marco, el objetivo de este artículo es describir la implementación del modelo de TPSR (los los éxitos percibidos y, en general, las lecciones extraídas). El artículo concluye con una sección que esboza el segundo año del programa, centrándose específicamente en los cambios programáticos y en las ideas y conclusiones de cara a futuros programasThe Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) Model (Hellison, 1995, 2011) has been used in numerous after-school and gym class settings. The typical make-up of TPSR programs is all boys or mixed-gendered (e.g., Tom Martinek's Project Effort in Greensboro, NC; Dave Walsh's Coaching Club in San Francisco, CA), with there being little written on programming for all girls.So when I was approached in the spring of 2010 by a women's shelter in Detroit, Michigan, to lead a physical activity programfor an all girls' summer camp, Iwas excited about using the TPSR Model with this population. The purpose of this article is to outline the delivery of this TPSR Model program, including the challenges that were encountered, the successes that were experienced, and the overall lessons thatwere learned. This article concludes with a section that outlines the second year of the program, with a specific focus on programmatic changes and ideas for future programming efforts thatwere borne out of this second year

Mott transition in the π\pi-flux SU(44) Hubbard model on a square lattice

We employ the projector quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study the ground-state properties of the square-lattice SU(4) Hubbard model with a $\pi$ flux per plaquette. In the weak coupling regime, its ground state is in the gapless Dirac semi-metal phase. With increasing repulsive interaction, we show that, a Mott transition occurs from the semimetal to the valence bond solid, accompanied by the $Z_4$ discrete symmetry breaking. Our simulations demonstrate the existence of a second-order phase transition, which confirms the Ginzburg-Landau analysis. The phase transition point and the critical exponent $\eta$ are also estimated. To account for the effect of a $\pi$ flux on the ordering in the strong coupling regime, we analytically derive by the perturbation theory the ring-exchange term which describes the leading-order difference between the $\pi$-flux and zero-flux SU(4) Hubbard models.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

It’s Like I Have an Advantage in All This: Experiences of Advocacy by Parents of Children with Disabilities from Professional Backgrounds

Supports and services for children with disabilities are not distributed equitably. There are disparities in access to and quality of services for children with disabilities from low-income and ethnic minority groups. There are likely many contributors to these disparities, but one factor may be barriers to access that require parents to advocate to obtain services for their children. This qualitative study explores advocacy experiences of parents of children with disabilities (n=40) who have a high level of education and/or professional achievement. Parents described relying heavily on their professional and educational backgrounds in advocacy, and some commented upon the “advantage” they had in accessing services. In the context of an international shift in developmental services policy towards self-determination and privatization, parents and guardians will play an even larger role in decision-making about services with their dependents with disabilities. The findings of this study suggest that support and training for parents and guardians as they navigate this new policy environment is especially critical given the role of parental knowledge and skills in advocacy activities

Tuning into the Future: Informal Learning and Music Education

When adolescents are engaged in learning, research has shown a decrease in alcohol and drug use, higher retention rates and fewer failures throughout high school, lower rates of depression as well as lower rates of anti-social and criminal behaviours. Attention to student engagement with a priority on 21st century learning skills requires the examination of various pedagogies, including using informal learning practices as the foundation for instruction with adolescents in schools. This pilot project targets Grade 7 to 10 students in two school settings where adolescent engagement is a priority; it examines the viability of implementing informal learning practices within the Canadian context

Method of phosphate ester hydrolysis

A method of phosphate ester hydrolysis including incubating a solution of an aqueous phosphate ester with a metallotexaphyrin complex under conditions and for a time sufficient to hydrolyze the phosphate ester. The metal is a metal cation having catalytic activity for ester bond hydrolysis in aqueous solution. Phosphate ester substrates include nucleic acid such as RNA, phosphoric anhydrides, phospholipids, and alkyl phosphate esters.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

An Intervention Targeting Academic and Behavioral Skill Deficits in Early Childhood: A Case-Study

Early literacy skills are considered prerequisites for early learners to eventually become effective readers (Storch & Whitehurst, 2002). Increasing early literacy skills is often the goal of teachers and schools, but skill acquisition can be hindered due to the bidirectional relationship between behavior difficulties and academic skill deficits. To compound this struggle, there is limited research available on the use of behavioral interventions that exist in conjunction with early academic interventions (Volpe et al., 2012). The goal of the current study was to pilot three emerging early literacy interventions: Fluency Letter Wheel; Letter Flash; and I Do, We Do, You Do. All three interventions were pulled from the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR), and target letter sound fluency (LSF). The second objective of this study was to examine an early academic intervention in conjunction with behavior management techniques (i.e., reinforcement and differential attention). One 7-year-old student with a history of academic and behavioral difficulties was examined across 13 individual academic sessions. A brief experimental analysis (BEA) was utilized within an alternating treatments design to identify the most effective academic intervention. A changing criterion design was then used after the I do, We do, You do intervention emerged as the most effective academic intervention. Results indicated that this intervention had moderate effects for increasing skill acquisition. In addition, skill acquisition of LSF was noted to increase from a frustrational range to a grade level instructional range during intervention implementation. Limitations, implications, and future directions of this research are discussed

Preserving syntactic processing across the adult life span: the modulation of the frontotemporal language system in the context of age-related atrophy.

Although widespread neural atrophy is an inevitable consequence of normal aging, not all cognitive abilities decline as we age. For example, spoken language comprehension tends to be preserved, despite atrophy in neural regions involved in language function. Here, we combined measures of behavior, functional activation, and gray matter (GM) change in a younger (19-34 years) and older group (49-86 years) of participants to identify the mechanisms leading to preserved language comprehension across the adult life span. We focussed primarily on syntactic functions because these are strongly left lateralized, providing the potential for contralateral recruitment. In an functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we used a word-monitoring task to minimize working memory demands, manipulating the availability of semantics and syntax to ask whether syntax is preserved in aging because of the functional recruitment of other brain regions, which successfully compensate for neural atrophy. Performance in the older group was preserved despite GM loss. This preservation was related to increased activity in right hemisphere frontotemporal regions, which was associated with age-related atrophy in the left hemisphere frontotemporal network activated in the young. We argue that preserved syntactic processing across the life span is due to the shift from a primarily left hemisphere frontotemporal system to a bilateral functional language network

Idiosyncratic responding during movie-watching predicted by age differences in attentional control.

Much is known about how age affects the brain during tightly controlled, though largely contrived, experiments, but do these effects extrapolate to everyday life? Naturalistic stimuli, such as movies, closely mimic the real world and provide a window onto the brain's ability to respond in a timely and measured fashion to complex, everyday events. Young adults respond to these stimuli in a highly synchronized fashion, but it remains to be seen how age affects neural responsiveness during naturalistic viewing. To this end, we scanned a large (N = 218), population-based sample from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) during movie-watching. Intersubject synchronization declined with age, such that older adults' response to the movie was more idiosyncratic. This decreased synchrony related to cognitive measures sensitive to attentional control. Our findings suggest that neural responsivity changes with age, which likely has important implications for real-world event comprehension and memory.This work and the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) are supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grant number BB/H008217/1).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2015.07.02