Applied Behavior Analysis

History and Development of Applied Behavior Analysis

Applied behavior analysis emerged in the 1960s as an extension of the laboratory science of behavior founded by B. F. Skinner in the late 1930s. Skinner’s research on operant conditioning, which he termed the experimental analysis of behavior, [Page 101]identified foundational principles of learning, including reinforcement, extinction, punishment, and stimulus control (generalization and discrimination). Although primarily responsible for the development of the basic science, Skinner himself saw clear implications of operant principles for behavior in the real-world settings and, in the late 1950s, embarked on a program of research aimed at identifying more effective instructional tactics for professional educators. Being an amateur engineer, Skinner fashioned early teaching machines capable of systematically programming instructional contingencies to enhance student mastery of academic concepts. Skinner’s laboratory analysis of behavior had revealed that any behavior could be conceptualized within the context of a three-term contingency, consisting of antecedent environmental events, the behavior of interest, and consequences that follow behavior.

In instructional design, academic materials, such as short written text or questions, served as antecedents, an active and objective response from the student served as behavior, and feedback regarding the accuracy of the student’s response served as consequential stimulation. Using standardized programs, Skinner was able to show that students were able to efficiently master a number of academic skills, including math and science, rapidly and fluently as a result of the frequent active responding and immediate feedback characterizing such programmed instruction.

By the 1970s, considerable research had been conducted on programmed instruction and other behaviorally based instructional methods, including Fred Keller’s personalized system of instruction. Meta-analyses of these research programs showed the instructional methods to be far more effective than traditional instructional methods, especially those dominated by instructor lectures. In fact, Project Follow Through, the largest educational experiment ever conducted, begun in 1967 as a part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty, amassed strong evidence of the effectiveness of behaviorally oriented instruction. When pitted against nearly a dozen alternative educational tactics, methods of behavioral instruction developed at the University of Oregon and the University of Kansas produced substantially larger student gains in both basic academic skill development and affective measures, such as self-concept.

...