Conclusion
Before conducting this experiment it had been my opinion that the positively reinforced class would’ve preformed the better than the other two classes. I also thought that the negatively reinforced class would not have performed the same as the positively reinforced class and the control.
Skinner stated that extreme forms of reinforcement be it positive or negative, would obtain greater results from a class. My results have found that extreme reinforcement is not the ideal situation, when it comes to teaching a topic in a class.
Our control class, which was a good balance of positive and negative reinforcement, provided us with the best results from the students. The control class managed to provide us with the best results in the after tests.
In the after test the control class students managed to get 63% of their test correct, this is an increase comparison to the positive class who only got 40% of their test correct, and the negative class only got 39% of their test correct. This shows us the students preformed better when they were taught not too positively or negatively, this tells us that skinner theory of extreme reinforcement can be challenged.
Recommendations
From these results, I think that teacher should teach their classes using both negative and positive reinforcement, in equal measure. This will allow students to form their own opinions of a particular topic or the subject in general. I think that teacher should not teach their classes with either extreme reinforcement.
Further Study
If I were to continue to study this particular topic, I would study the reinforcement that is used in primary school and see how it differs from the reinforcement that is used in secondary school. I would also study how positive and negative reinforcement in a classroom affects the students choice of their third level course.
