Using Interdependent Group-Oriented Reinforcement to Enhance Academic Performance in General Education Classrooms

In their meta-analysis, Stage and Quiroz (1997) found that group-oriented contingencies yielded the largest effect size of interventions designed to reduce inappropriate behaviors in public schools. However, such procedures may be underutilized for enhancing academic performance and learning. The current article describes how interdependent group-oriented reward procedures with randomly selected, indiscriminable, or unknown contingency components (i.e., target behaviors, rewards, and criteria for earning rewards) can be used to enhance student academic performance. Applied examples are interspersed throughout the article. Analysis focuses on how these procedures address philosophical, managerial, and social-emotional concerns associated with rewarding academic performance in general education classrooms.