The Future of Behavior Analysis in Educational Settings

Abstract

In 1980, a national conference (Ysseldyke & Weinberg, 1981) acknowledged a growing crisis of morale and mission in the discipline of school psychology. As part of that conference, Baer and Bushell (1981) described the accomplishments of behavior-analytic approaches to public education. We said of behavior analysis that “It could transform a classroom of shouting, aggressive, destructive, rebellious, out-of-seat vandals into a quiet, seated, attentive, and industrious work force.”

That work force, we said,

did assignments quickly and accurately, spoke mainly to ask intelligent questions about the assignments; smiled upon completing them, and upon the teacher’s acknowledgements of those completions, and upon the teacher; and given the choice, voted to have school rather than holidays, (p. 259)

This chapter is substantially similar to a paper of the same title read at the tenth annual convention of the Association for behavior Analysis, Nashville, May 1984, as part of a symposium on Conceptual and Applied Issues for Behavioral Analysis iin Educational Settings.