A BEHAVIORAL TECHNOLOGY FOR PRODUCING CONCEPT FORMATION IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

Three experiments analyzed the effectiveness of a textbook incorporating “concept programming” in producing concept formation in university students. The concept programming portion of each lesson requires students to determine which concept is illustrated by each of 20 short fictional stories about everyday behavioral situations. The stories are selected to illustrate and contrast the concepts of that lesson. Student responses are heavily prompted during the initial stories of each lesson. The first experiment demonstrated that students generalize to entirely novel examples from the examples in the textbook. The second experiment demonstrated that the concept programming portion of the textbook is a critical component in producing generalization. The third experiment demonstrated that the amount of concept formation produced by the concept programmed textbook is greater than that produced by a widely used standard textbook.