ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that experimental psychologists have eschewed classroom experimentation because of its enormous complexity. It describes the factors involved in reinforcement in humans are much more complex than in other animals, and considers some of the ways in which it can influence learning. Reinforcement is a powerful determinant of behaviour in psychologists as well as in other humans and animals. The use of reinforcement by a teacher in order to influence learning is therefore clearly a complex matter, but at the same time it has a flexibility that makes possible much more complex learning and teaching than would otherwise be the case. In the former the teacher provides reinforcement every time the learner carries out the behavioural activity that the teacher, has planned as part of the learning; this schedule produces the speediest learning. Reinforcement in school learning is frequently the successful accomplishment of some task.
