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| Acquisition of Observational Learning and Higher Order Verbal Operants |
| Monday, May 30, 2005 |
| 10:30 AM–11:50 AM |
| Private Dining Room 2 (3rd floor) |
| Area: EDC; Domain: Applied Research |
| Chair: Jessica Singer-Dudek (St. John's University) |
| Abstract: We present 4 papers focusing on the acquisition of observational learning and higher order verbal operants. Two of the papers describe studies that tested the effects of peer monitoring on the acquisition of observational learning. The first demonstrated that elementary students with developmental disabilities acquired tacts, reading words, and spelling words as a function of learning to monitor their peers’ correct and incorrect responses. The second demonstrated that middle school students acquired rule-governed responding by observing tutees’ correct and incorrect responses to peer tutors during tutoring sessions in which math rules for performing complex operations were taught. The third paper tested the effects of peer tutoring on the untaught responses of both tutors and tutees to contractions, morphemes, and spelling words in a multiple exemplar format. The fourth paper tested the relative effects of two types of multiple exemplar instruction on the transformation of establishing operations across mands and tacts for preschoolers with disabilities. Taken together, the results from these studies provide valuable information regarding the acquisition of observational learning and the emergence of untaught responses as a function of multiple exemplar instruction, both of which can lead to improved educational outcomes for all kinds of learners. |
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| The Effects of a Peer-Monitoring Procedure on the Acquisition of Observational Learning |
| JOANN PEREIRA DELGADO (Teachers College, Columbia University) |
| Abstract: A series of experiments were conducted to test whether students without observational learning would acquire observational learning by teaching them to monitor the correct and incorrect responses of their peers. The procedure was tested across 6 five to six year old students with developmental disabilities, who did not demonstrate observational learning in pre-experimental probes. The dependent variable for the first experiment was responses to probes for common words and tacts immediately following each session in which they observed their peers receive learn units. A counterbalanced multiple baseline across participants for a) tacts and b) words was implemented. The treatment consisted of the observers completing a series of teaching sessions in which they learned to monitor their assigned peer’s correct and incorrect responses to learn unit presentations of words to a predetermined criterion. The results demonstrated a higher level of responding to words and tacts from pre-experimental levels, thereby demonstrating that the students had acquired observational learning. In addition, the results demonstrated that the participants’ performance was not localized to the peers they had been paired with in the training sessions. The purpose of the second experiment was to investigate the effects of the monitoring intervention used in experiment 1 on observational learning repertoires after observing a peer receive learn units on vocal spelling programs. Additionally, social exchanges were observed in the free play setting. |
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| The Effects of Peer Monitoring on the Acquisition of Observational Learning of Rule-Governed Responding by Middle School Students |
| GRANT GAUTREAUX (Teachers College, Columbia University) |
| Abstract: Two experiments were conducted using peer tutoring to test the effects of a peer monitoring training procedure on observational learning. The participants in the first study were 2 male and 1 female middle school students. Instructional arrangements were designed to include a tutor delivering math instruction to a tutee. Targeted math operations involved rules, sequential steps and procedures of problem solving. Probes were conducted on tutors’ responses to stating seven sets of math rules. These probes showed that the tutors did not have the targeted math operations in their repertoires. Subsequently, upon completion of the probes, the tutors taught the rule sets to the tutee. Instructional tutoring sessions were limited to two consecutive sessions. The results of the pre and post tests showed that acquisition of math rules for tutors was greater after the implementation of the peer monitoring training procedure. Weekly probes were also administered to measure changes in self-monitoring, reading comprehension, and listening skills. Generalization from peer monitoring to self-monitoring was noted for tutor P and tutor M. Collateral changes were found for all participants in regards to listening skills. These findings give us valuable information which can be used to teach observational learning for those students who have a history of not learning via observation. |
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| The Effects of Tutoring on the Emergence of Untaught Responses |
| LYNN YUAN (Teachers College, Columbia University) |
| Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to test whether new untaught responses would emerge as a function of observational learning occasioned through the multiple exemplar instruction delivered by a tutor. The first experiment investigated the emergence of untaught responses for the tutor and the tutee when multiple exemplar instruction was used during peer tutoring sessions. Two participants were paired as a tutor and a tutee for a contraction program, and two other participants were paired as a tutor and a tutee for a morpheme program. Prior to the experiment, probe sessions were conducted to determine the number of correct responses emitted by the tutor and the tutee on different response forms on the contractions and on the morphemes (Set 1). In the baseline condition, the tutees were taught to master one of the response forms on the contraction program and morpheme set following probe sessions on untaught responses. The tutors then taught the tutees with Set 2 contraction words and Set 2 morphemes using multiple exemplar training until the students achieved criteria. Probe sessions on the untaught responses were conducted for the Set 1 following the multiple exemplar training. The tutees were then taught to master one of the response forms and one of the morpheme sets with Set 3 and the other untaught responses were probed. The results showed that after multiple exemplar training was implemented by the peer tutors, the both the tutors and the tutees emitted untaught responses for both programs, showing that the multiple exemplar training could potentially contribute to the transformation of stimulus function and the development of derived relational responding for the tutees who was receiving the instruction as well as for the tutors who were delivering instruction.For the second experiment, the experiment was extended by investigating whether the tutors who have observational learning would acquire higher order operants with spelling responses by delivering multiple exemplar instruction to the tutee. The procedure in the second experiment was the same as the first experiment with an exception that the tutors taught tutees spelling responses in two forms (e.g., vocal response and scripting response) to test the transformation of stimulus function between these two response functions. |
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| The Relative Effects of the Acquisition of Naming and a Multiple Exemplar Establishing Operation Experience on the Transformation of Establishing Operations across Mands and Tacts |
| ANJALEE NIRGUDKAR (Teachers College, Columbia University) |
| Abstract: Two experiments tested the effects of two types of multiple exemplar instruction, naming and establishing operations, on the transformation of establishing operations across mands and tacts. Seven preschool children with disabilities participated in the study. All participants followed one-step instructions, imitated multiple-step motor actions, and emitted mands and tacts with an appropriate autoclitic frame (e.g., I want x please; this is a dog). However, these responses were not under the control of the associated establishing operation. That is, the participants did not mand the items they tacted or tact the items they manded. The dependent variable in both experiments was the transformation of establishing operations. This was defined as the emission of a verbal operant (e.g., tact) not directly taught, after having learned another verbal operant (e.g., mand). Multiple exemplar naming instruction consisted of a counterbalanced sequence of instructions such that all functions, match, point to [x], tact or mand, intraverbal, were presented. Multiple exemplar establishing operation instruction consisted of a counterbalanced sequence of instructions such that both verbal operants, mands and tacts, were presented. A counterbalanced multiple probe design was utilized in this study. Results for all participants showed an increase in the level of correct responses to probe trials of the untaught verbal operant following multiple exemplar establishing operation instruction. There was no change in the level of correct responses to probe trials of the untaught verbal operant following multiple exemplar naming instruction. Multiple exemplar establishing operation instruction was effective in occasioning an increase in correct responses of verbal operants not directly taught. |
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