Directions: In Week 2, you chose a behavior that you want to change in order to improve your study and/or work habits. Now that you know more about operant and classical conditioning, it is time to develop a plan for how to execute those changes. After your plan is approved, you will implement than plan over the next couple of weeks before turning in a final report on the project.
For this week:
- Describe a detailed step-by-step program of behavioral treatment using one or more forms of operant conditioning and/or classical conditioning
- For each step, identify the process(es) you will employ, the specific steps of the proposed procedure(s), the intended behavioral outcome(s) of the procedure(s), and the consequences of reaching or not reaching that outcome. Include information about how you will measure and document your behavior.
- Use terminology learned in class whenever possible
- Make your plan clear and specific enough that you could give the report to someone else and they could carry out the treatment exactly as you intended it
- Remember, focus on observable behavior, not on underlying mental processes
- Take this seriously and develop a plan that will work and be long-lasting – after all, even though this is just a small step, this project has the potential to help you succeed throughout your college career and beyond
Below is a preview of where this assignment is heading. The following items are not due this week.
In your final report, include:
- A brief introduction
- Your original treatment plan (this assignment)
- Modifications to your treatment plan and why they were made
- You must consider feedback from this week’s assignment and make decisions about how to improve your project to make it the best it can be for the final version.. You may not be able to accommodate each of my specific suggestions, but you should have a rationale for how you respond to each piece of feedback. For example, if I suggest A, but you come up with solution B, you may decide to do B, and you should be able to say why you picked that option over A
- A summary of the project outcomes with quantitative information (tables and graphs! This means you need to collect data.)
- An analysis/reflection on the experience
Parameters
- Pre-treatment plans (this assignment) should be 2–4 pages and final reports 7–10 pages
- Length does not matter as much as what you write
- Write as much as you need in order to present a clear and comprehensive description and analysis of the project
- MUST BE APA format
