Greatness and misery in the teaching of the psychology of learning

Interteaching: A strategy for enhancing the user-friendliness of behavioral arrangements in the college classroom

"Interteaching" is an arrangement for college classroom instruction that departs from the standard lecture format and offers an answer to criticisms commonly directed at behavioral teaching techniques. This approach evolved from exploratory use of small-group arrangements and Ferster and Perrott's (1968) "interview technique," leading ultimately to a format that is organized around focused dyadic discussion. Specific suggestions are offered that might enable both seasoned and novice instructors to incorporate this or similar arrangements into their classrooms. This approach retains some key characteristics of Keller's personalized system of instruction and precision teaching, but offers greater flexibility for strategies that are based on behavioral principles.

Science and Human Behavior at fifty

The golden anniversary of Science and Human Behavior is cause for celebration. Toward that end, the present paper is largely an historical consideration of the book, its inception and reception, both at the time of its publication and in subsequent years. The range and intensity of reactions to S&HB mark its impact and show it to be among Skinner's most important works, if not the most important. S&HB was written as an introductory psychology text--a vigorous use of the book in our teaching could do much to benefit the dissemination of behavior analysis.

O rato Sniffy vai à escola

Sniffy Pro - O Rato Virtual é um programa de computador, acompanhado de um manual de laboratório, que tem como proposta servir de recurso didático aplicado ao ensino introdutório de Análise Experimental do Comportamento, em especial às atividades práticas normalmente desenvolvidas em laboratórios de condicionamento operante que empregam ratos como sujeitos e caixas de Skinner como equipamento experimental. O objetivo do presente artigo é analisar Sniffy Pro no tocante aos aspectos concernentes à sua pertinência e adequação como material de ensino. Segundo os autores de Sniffy Pro, este aplicativo seria atraente pelo que representa em termos de tecnologia informatizada, pelo seu baixo custo, pela sua facilidade de uso e pela economia de tempo que propicia. Entretanto, tomados vários aspectos da concepção de Sniffy Pro, seu conteúdo e estrutura, bem como alguns aspectos éticos relacionados, demonstra-se que a sua utilização como recurso didático deve muito provavelmente ocorrer às custas de prejuízos na formação científica do estudante de Psicologia.

Constructing knowledge. The role of graphs and tables in hard and soft psychology

Because graphs provide a compact, rhetorically powerful way of representing research findings, recent theories of science have postulated their use as a distinguishing feature of science. Studies have shown that the use of graphs in journal articles correlates highly with the hardness of scientific fields, both across disciplines and across sub-fields of psychology. In contrast, the use of tables and inferential statistics in psychology is inversely related to subfield hardness, suggesting that the relationship between hardness and graph use is not attributable to differences in the use of quantitative data in subfields or their commitment to empiricism. Enhanced "graphicacy" among psychologists could contribute to the progress of psychological science by providing alternatives to significance testing and by facilitating communication across subfields.

Graph use in psychology and other sciences

Since the early 19th century, graphs have been recognised as an effective method of analysing and representing scientific data. However, levels of graph use have varied widely since then, partly due to increasing reliance on inferential statistics in some fields. Recent studies indicate that graph use is closely related to the 'hardness' of scientific disciplines, and that this finding holds for journal articles and textbooks across the subfields of psychology. In the area of animal behaviour, journals devote about one-sixth of their page space to graphs, a level of graph use approximating that of biology and physics. Implications for the training of scientists in the use of visual displays are considered.