Abstract
Structured classroom management systems such as token economies have been commonly employed in special education, remedial, and regular classrooms for the reduction of disruptive and socially inappropriate student behaviors. Still, many well-intentioned management plans do not achieve maximum effectiveness because several key prerequisites to a program's success are overlooked. The present study assessed the relative strength of daily rule review and rehearsal on student behavior when such procedures were added to a token economy. The token program was designed to increase appropriate classroom behaviors of disruptive boys attending a multicategorical resource room. Results indicated that a brief daily review of the classroom rules can maximize the effectiveness of a well-planned and reliably implemented classroom management system. Compared to the token economy alone condition, the token economy with the daily review of the classroom rules resulted in an overall time-on-task improvement of 12% and a 50% reduction in the instances of disruptive talkouts. Additionally, it was found that the daily review of rules provided a greater number of opportunities to respond to be presented during lessons. Explanations and implications of these results are discussed in terms of instructional utilization and the need for planning for generalization and covertization.
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