Effect of reinforcement of response on internal consistency of selected WISC-R substests.

Abstract

An experimental study of 120 educable mentally retarded subjects was undertaken to examine the differential effects of three types of reinforcers (verbal praise, token, and verbal neutral) and two levels of schedule of reinforcement (continuous and fixed ratio) on the Arithmetic, Picture Completion, and Block Design subtests from the WISC-R. Although the pattern of coefficients was similar for the two schedule conditions, there was a trend for the fixed ratio schedule to result in a greater number of attempted items and higher coefficients of internal consistency. The superiority of any type of reinforcer treatment was not demonstrated.