Abstract
Psychology instructors and textbook authors rate operant conditioning as one of the most essential concepts for students to learn, yet textbook writers, as well as students, can fall prey to misconceptions. This study is a content analysis of the presentation of operant conditioning in introductory psychology textbooks and their companion Web sites to discover if these information sources assist student learning or add to confusion. Results indicate that the failure to refer to changes in the likelihood of the organism's behavior when discussing operant conditioning was extremely common; this problem should be remedied to reduce students' misunderstandings.
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