Evaluating preschool children's preferences for motivational systems during instruction

Preschool teachers rely on several strategies for motivating children to participate in learning activities. In the current study, we evaluated the effectiveness of and preference for three teaching contexts in which embedded, sequential, or no programmed reinforcement was arranged. The embedded context included highly preferred teaching materials, the sequential context included highly preferred edible items for correct responding, and a control context included neither. In addition, an exclusively play-oriented activity was included as a fourth option to determine if one of the direct teaching contexts could compete with a relatively unstructured and exclusively child-led activity. All participants preferred the sequential context (use of high-quality consequences) over the embedded context (use of high-quality teaching materials), 2 of the 4 participants preferred some motivational system to none at all, and the play area was selected over all variants of the instructional contexts during the majority of trials. We found either no or small differences in correct responding in the different instructional contexts; however, rates of undesirable behavior were highest in the least preferred interaction area for 3 of the 4 participants. Implications for the design of effective and preferred teaching environments for young children are discussed.