Token Economy: Teacher's Use of Positive Reinforcement in Schools

A token economy is an intensive, in-class positive reinforcement program for building up and maintaining appropriate classroom performance and behavior. A token program may be needed when other positive reinforcement programs, such as selective use of teacher attention or a home-based reinforcement program. In many different education settings a material reward program can be conveniently managed through a token reinforcement program. Token programs involve the distribution of physical tokens (for example, poker chips, stickers, stars, smiley faces, etc.) or points following appropriate behavior. The tokens or points can be accumulated throughout the day and exchanged for designated rewards at a specified time. A predetermined goal is set for the number of tokens or points required to earn a reward. I chose this area of study for my paper because I believe a token economy no matter what setting it is in it has strong advantages with children with disabilities as well as home schooled children. I believe that a token economy is one of the most powerful behavioral interventions for improving school behavior. Token programs allow for the use of more powerful incentives than are typically in place in the classroom. In addition, token programs have the advantage of providing more immediate rewards than home-based programs.

The first scholarly journal that I read was called "Effects of Classroom structure on Student Achievement Goal Orientation." In this journal the authors, Shannon R, Samuel, and Matthews assess how classroom structure influence student achievement goal orientation for mathematics. In most elementary classrooms, teachers evaluate students against a normative standard. In this journal three elementary school...

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...y because, it shows that with a little extra work token economies can be used at home and in the school and have a strong effect in the child's education. I thought this article was very interesting to read about, because of the home school setting. I would probably recommend the students in this behavior modification class to read this article because; there might be parents in the class that might be interested in developing a token economy for a home schooled child.

All of these scholarly journals are the same because they talked mostly about the advantages of token economy. The all implemented token economies but in different settings. I have learned a lot from this area of research from reading many scholarly journals and have realized that a token economy can help in many ways, whether it is child's behavior, academic performance, or personal goals.