Comparing Group-Contingency and Individualized Equivalence-Based Instruction to a PowerPoint Lecture to Establish Equivalence Classes of Reinforcement and Punishment Procedures with College Students

Equivalence-based instruction (EBI) involves the teaching of socially relevant material (e.g., academic material) with stimulus equivalence procedures. In the research literature, training and testing of equivalence classes has been almost exclusively conducted on an individual basis. To extend the literature, the present study compared the effects of using EBI with an interdependent group contingency, individualized EBI (no group contingency), and a PowerPoint lecture on class formation with college students. The four equivalence classes taught consisted of information related to positive and negative reinforcement and punishment procedures. The members of each class were the name, definition, an example of the contingency, and the corresponding contingency table diagram. For the two EBI groups, a cloud-based student response system (SRS) application involving personal cell phones was used. To compare the effects of the different teaching protocols, three pretests and posttests were administered: (1) written fill-in, (2) written multiple-choice, and (3) card sorting. Results showed increased class-consistent responding across all three groups following training. However, written multiple-choice tests performances for the two EBI groups were significantly higher than for the lecture group, and the group-contingency EBI was significantly more effective for the fill-in written test than was lecture. Results also maintained at a 1-week follow-up. These results suggest that EBI can be effectively and efficiently implemented in more naturalistic settings, such as a classroom, while using free web-based technology.