This article was downloaded by: [North Dakota State University]On: 17 December 2014, At: 23:06Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK
Journal of Educational andPsychological ConsultationPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hepc20
Acceptability of RewardsAmong High School Teachers,Parents, Students, andAdministrators: EcologicalImplications for Consultation atthe High School LevelCindy L. Gray , Terry B. Gutkin & Tim R. RileyPublished online: 10 Nov 2009.
To cite this article: Cindy L. Gray , Terry B. Gutkin & Tim R. Riley (2001)Acceptability of Rewards Among High School Teachers, Parents, Students, andAdministrators: Ecological Implications for Consultation at the High School Level,Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 12:1, 25-43, DOI: 10.1207/S1532768XJEPC1201_02
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Acceptability of Rewards AmongHigh School Teachers, Parents,Students, and Administrators:
Ecological Implications forConsultation at the High School Level
Cindy L. Gray and Terry B. GutkinUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln
Tim R. RileyMunroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation
Although rewards play a critical role in virtually all intervention plans gener-ated by behavioral consultants, we have virtually no knowledge of whichspecific rewards and reward categories are acceptable to the various constitu-ents of consultation services. A participant-generated survey was designedand administered to assess the acceptability of 90 different rewards from theperspective of persons occupying different positions in the ecosystems ofhigh school students (i.e., high school teachers, parents, administrators, andstudents themselves). Findings of this exploratory study revealed that noneof the seven reward categories that were studied were viewed as highly ac-ceptable across all surveyed groups. With the possible exception of academicactivities, which had reasonably strong support among all the participantgroups, important differences were found across the reward categories whencomparing the ratings of adults versus students. An examination of the indi-vidual survey items revealed only a small handful of rewards that received atleast moderate support among all the constituent groups. Difficulties facingbehavioral consultants in high school settings are discussed, along with the
JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSULTATION, 12(1), 25–43Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Correspondence should be addressed to Terry B. Gutkin, 117 Bancroft Hall, University ofNebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588–0345. Email: [email protected]
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need for more research addressing persuasion and interpersonal influence aspotential mechanisms for enhancing reward acceptability.
Although the scientific literature pertaining to treatment acceptability hasgrown substantially in recent years (e.g., Elliott, 1988; Fairbanks & Stinnett,1997; Gresham & Lopez, 1996; Rasnake, 1993; Reimers, Wacker, & Koeppl,1987), we have virtually no knowledge of which rewards school-basedconsultees find acceptable for use in their classrooms. Given that teachersare less likely to implement an intervention program that they find unac-ceptable (e.g., Axelrod, Moyer, & Berry, 1990; Cafferty, 1992; Hughes, 1992;Lentz, Allen, & Ehrhardt, 1996; Margolis, Fish, & Wepner, 1990; Snyder &Kendzierski, 1982) and that rewards are likely to be an integral element ofalmost every intervention program emerging from behavioral consultationefforts (Bergan & Kratochwill, 1990), it is important for school-based con-sultants to develop a more extensive and empirically validated under-standing of this subject.
The need to improve our grasp of reward acceptability may be particu-larly pressing for those who work in high schools. For one thing, becausehigh school students regularly interact with numerous teachers during thecourse of each day, and problems are unlikely to be isolated in singularclassroom environments, it is highly probable that behavioral consulta-tions in this setting will involve multiple rather than single consultees.Identifying acceptable rewards may be especially challenging within thiscontext. Additionally, high school-based behavioral consultation normallyinvolves clients who have access to potent rewards outside the school en-vironment (Houlihan, Jesse, Levine, & Sombke, 1991; Sharpe, Wheldall, &Merrett, 1987), thus making the design of effective reinforcement-basedschool interventions all the more difficult. Clearly, knowing which re-wards typically are acceptable to high school teachers would simplify thetask facing high school-based behavioral consultants as they function withgroups of consultees on various cases. Of equal importance, understand-ing which rewards are usually unacceptable would reduce the likelihoodof suggesting inappropriate options within the context of a behavioral in-tervention plan.
To enhance the utility and external validity of the extant acceptabilityliterature, it is also very important to expand the current knowledge basebeyond teachers (Dappen & Gutkin, 1986; Fairbanks & Stinnett, 1997;Gresham & Lopez, 1996), to include other vital stakeholders in the consul-tation ecosystem. In particular, the perceptions of administrators, parents,and students need to be incorporated into our research. For one thing, re-gardless of whether teachers find a reward to be acceptable for inclusion in
26 GRAY, GUTKIN, RILEY
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a reinforcement-based intervention, they may not be able to use this re-ward in practice if either their administrators or the parents of their clientsfind it to be unacceptable. Likewise, it would not be surprising if some re-wards deemed to be appropriate by adults (e.g., teachers, administrators,parents) might not be particularly acceptable to students themselves, thusrendering these stimuli impotent for all practical purposes.
To date, we could find no research addressing the reward preferencesfor high school teachers, high school administrators, or the parents of highschool students in the United States. The research addressing reward ac-ceptability among high school students themselves is also quite limited, al-though there has been some research conducted in Great Britain (Caffyn,1989; Sharpe et al., 1987) and Hong Kong (Wan & Salili, 1996) examiningthe attitudes of secondary students, teachers, or both toward praise andother rewards. The British studies suggest that adolescents may prefer pri-vate adult praise, positive letters home, and free time, with ninth-gradestudents also expressing high preferences for edibles and small gifts. Wanand Salili found greater support for adult public praise.
The purpose of the current study was to initiate a research literature ex-amining the acceptability of rewards that might be earned by students inhigh school settings. Specifically, the intent was to determine whether re-wards exist that might be used to encourage improved school performancewhile simultaneously being considered highly acceptable to teachers, ad-ministrators, parents, and students. If such rewards could be identified,they would be of significant utility for consultants as they design behav-ioral programs for high school students.
METHOD
Participants
Participants were drawn from a small, suburban, predominantly White,Midwestern school district. All of the district’s administrators (n = 8), all ofthe teachers at the district’s single high school (grades 9 – 12; n = 36), all10th-grade parents listed in the school’s address system (n = 116), and thetotal student enrollment of a biology class required for all 10th graders (n =116) were invited to participate. Teachers (39% women, 61% men) rangedin experience from 1 to 38 years (M = 17), and students (52% girls, 48% boys)ranged in age from 15 to 19 (M = 16). Response rates for administrators,teachers, parents, and students were 100%, 61%, 22%, and 94%, respec-
ACCEPTABILITY OF REWARDS IN HIGH SCHOOL 27
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tively, for the preliminary study; and 88%, 78%, 39%, and 84%, respec-tively, for the main study.1
Procedures
Preliminary study. During the preliminary study, all participantswere randomly assigned to receive one of two scenarios describing ficti-tious students who were experiencing difficulty in school. One scenario de-picted a boy, “Burt,” and the other depicted a girl, “Betty.” Both Burt andBetty were described as high school juniors who appeared to have no men-tal or physical impairments. The scenario described them as having poorattendance, poor work completion, and a lack of attentiveness duringschool. The scenario went on to explain that punishment alone did not ap-pear to be working; it further projected that poor outcomes (e.g., droppingout, poor paying jobs, adjudication) would be likely unless Burt and Bettycould be motivated to improve in school. The scenario concluded by askingparticipants to think of rewards for which Burt and Betty might be moti-vated to pay attention in class and complete homework. Along with the sce-nario, each participant received a letter outlining the purposes of the study.This letter included information that the study was being conducted as partof an ongoing incentive program already in place at the school, thus mak-ing participants aware that the suggestions provided would be consideredfor implementation at their school. This existing incentive program al-lowed students to earn hall passes, snack coupons, parking spaces, cash, orlunch at a local restaurant, or all of these based on excellence or improve-ments in behavior, attendance, or quarterly grading reports.
Participants were instructed to list all of the things and activities thatmight be used, contingent on improved performance at school, to motivateBurt and Betty. Participants were provided with three examples: (a) extratime in the student commons area (Betty) or weight room (Burt), (b) freepizza certificates donated by a local restaurant, and (c) extended weekendcurfews. Participants were asked to write down as many ideas as theycould, to number each one, and to be specific.
Student materials were distributed and completed during a biologyclass. Teacher and administrator materials were sent via school mail andreturned to the school secretary. In an effort to avoid selective sampling of
28 GRAY, GUTKIN, RILEY
1For the main study, the response rate is based on 109 parents and 114 students. Differences
in the numbers of parents and students receiving surveys between the preliminary study andthe main study reflect changes in class enrollment from the fall to the spring semester.
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parents, materials were mailed to all 10th-grade parents, along withstamped, addressed return envelopes. A reminder note was subsequentlysent to parents through the school’s monthly newsletter.
Two raters independently coded the completed response sheets to iden-tify the usable items from each participant. To be included in the final sur-vey, items had to specify a reward that could be delivered contingently in ahigh school setting within 5 weeks or less of a target behavior having oc-curred. The 5-week limit was chosen because it corresponded to normalgrade reporting periods and because a longer contingency time framewould be of limited utility for a consultant attempting to use the rewardsin an intervention program. Some extremely similar items, such as sugges-tions involving different brands of soft drinks, were combined into a singleitem (e.g., a can of pop). Based on their review of the total item pool, thetwo raters developed categories under which each item could be grouped.Seven categories emerged from this process: (a) adult social rewards (n = 8;e.g., principal letters of encouragement); (b) peer social rewards (n = 5; e.g.,a few minutes at the end of class to talk with their friends); (c) edibles (n = 6;e.g., drink pop during classes); (d) tangibles (n = 6); e.g., pack of pens orpencils); (e) money (n = 8; e.g., $5 for each week’s improvement); (f) aca-demic activities (n = 17; e.g., have a teacher help tutor him or her duringstudy hall); and (g) nonacademic activities (n = 40; e.g., an extra 5 minadded on to lunchtime).
Point-by-point interrater reliability was calculated both for the identifi-cation of items from participants’ response sheets and for the classificationof items into the seven reward categories. In both instances the reliabilitywas 89%, which was calculated by dividing the number of agreements bythe number of agreements plus disagreements. Following these reliabilitychecks, differences between the two raters were resolved via discussion, sothat all items were identified and classified with perfect agreement.
Main study. All the ideas generated in the preliminary study that metthe criteria for inclusion (n = 90) were presented to the total pool of partici-pants along with instructions to rate each potential reward in terms of itsacceptability using a 5-point Likert-type scale measured from 1 (very inap-propriate) to 5 (very appropriate). Participants again received a cover letter ex-plaining that the study was being conducted as part of the school’s currentincentive program; they did not, however, receive any scenarios describingparticular students, but were instead given general instructions to indicatethe degree to which they would find each of the listed items as being appro-priate for school personnel to provide as incentives to high school students
ACCEPTABILITY OF REWARDS IN HIGH SCHOOL 29
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contingent on improvement in school performance. Materials for the mainstudy were distributed in the same manner as those for the preliminarystudy. Because of the small number of administrators in this study, it wasdecided that analyses of their responses to this measure (hereafter referredto as the Reward Acceptability Survey) would be limited to descriptiverather than inferential statistical procedures.
RESULTS
Means (and standard deviations) for teachers, parents, students, and ad-ministrators on the total score of the Reward Acceptability Survey were 2.8(.5), 2.8 (.7), 3.3 (.7), and 3.1 (.5), respectively. A one-way (teachers, parents,students) analysis of variance (ANOVA) of these data was significant, F(2,163) = 10.7, p < .001. Follow-up tests (Tukey honestly significant difference[HSD]) indicated that students’ overall ratings were significantly more ac-cepting than teachers and parents, but teachers and parents did not differsignificantly from each other.
Given the nonsignificant differences between the parents and teacherson the total score, a series of one-way (parents, teachers) ANOVAs wereemployed to determine whether they differed from each other on any ofthe seven reward categories. Results indicated that they did not: edibles,F(1, 69) = .0, p > .05; tangibles, F(1, 69) = 1.3, p > .05; money, F(1, 69) = .9, p >.05; academic activities, F(1, 69) = .9, p > .05; nonacademic activities, F(1, 69)= .0, p > .05; peer social rewards, F(1, 69) = .1, p > .05; and adult social re-wards, F(1, 69) = 1.4, p > .05. Based on these results, it was decided to com-bine the teacher and parent groups (hereafter referred to as the combinedadult group) in all subsequent statistical analyses.
Means and standard deviations for the student and combined adult partic-ipants for each of the seven reward categories are presented in Table 1 andFigure 1. A 2 (combined adults, students) × 7 (reward categories) repeatedmeasures ANOVA was used to determine whether there were significant dif-ferences between the combined adult group and students on each of the re-ward categories. In light of violations of the assumptions of sphericity andhomogeneity of variance, a Huyn–Feldt adjustment (Keppel, 1991) and astringent alpha level of .01 were employed for all related statistical tests. Theresults indicated significant main effects for groups, F(1, 164) = 9.4, p < .01, andreward categories, F(6, 984) = 26.3, p < .001, as well as a significant interaction,F(6, 984) = 54.4, p < .001, thus suggesting that parents and teachers (combinedadult group) differed from students in their preferences, with parents andteachers favoring some types of rewards and students favoring others.
30 GRAY, GUTKIN, RILEY
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To assess ways in which these groups differed in their perceptions of ac-ceptability for each of the seven reward categories, post hoc (tests for sim-ple effects) comparisons were conducted for each category comparing thetwo groups of participants. The results indicated that the combined adultgroup found adult social rewards significantly, t(164) = 7.0, p < .001, moreacceptable than did students, and that students found edibles, t(164) =–4.1, p < .001, money t(164) = –5.7, p < .001, peer social rewards, t(164) =
ACCEPTABILITY OF REWARDS IN HIGH SCHOOL 31
FIGURE 1 Mean ratings of reward categories for combined adultgroup, students, and administrators.
TABLE 1Means (and Standard Deviations) for Combined Adult Group, Students,
and Administrators for the Seven Reward Categories
Combined Adults(N = 71)
Students(N = 95)
Administrators(N = 7)
Edibles 2.9 (1.1) 3.6 (0.9) 3.6 (1.0)Tangibles 2.9 (0.8) 3.0 (0.8) 3.7 (0.8)Money 2.4 (1.0) 3.4 (1.1) 2.8 (0.9)Academic activities 3.3 (0.7) 3.2 (0.7) 3.8 (0.5)Nonacademic activities 2.4 (0.6) 3.3 (0.8) 2.5 (0.7)Peer social rewards 2.9 (0.8) 3.5 (0.8) 3.2 (0.7)Adult social rewards 3.9 (0.7) 3.0 (0.8) 4.3 (0.5)
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–5.0, p < .001, and nonacademic activities significantly, t(164) = –7.9, p <.001, more acceptable than the combined adult group.
To assess preferences of the combined adult group among the seven re-ward categories, their mean ratings for each reward category were ar-ranged in descending order. The resulting list was (a) adult social rewards,(b) academic activities, (c) edibles, (d) tangibles, (e) peer social rewards, (f)money, and (g) nonacademic activities. Post hoc (HSD test) analyses (criti-cal value for p < .01 = .33) were conducted comparing the means of each re-ward category (Table 2). The combined adult group rated adult socialrewards significantly higher than any other reward category. This group’ssecond choice, academic activities, was favored significantly over all of theremaining five categories. Finally, edibles, tangibles, and peer social re-wards were all given significantly higher ratings than money andnonacademic activities.
A parallel analysis was conducted for the student group. The resultinglist of descending preferences was (a) edibles, (b) peer social rewards, (c)money, (d) nonacademic activities, (e) academic activities, (f) adult socialrewards, and (g) tangibles. Post hoc (HSD test) analyses (critical value for p< .01 = .28; Table 2) indicated no significant differences between the stu-dent’s top four category choices of edibles, peer social rewards, money,and nonacademic activities. All of these reward categories received signifi-cantly higher ratings than both adult social rewards and tangibles, whileonly edibles and peer social rewards were favored significantly over aca-demic activities.
32 GRAY, GUTKIN, RILEY
TABLE 2Pattern of Significant Differences for the Combined Adult and
Student Groups Across Reward Categories
Group Group Reward Categories Rated Significantly (p < .01) Greater Than
CombinedAdult
Adult Social Rewards Academic Activities, Edibles,Tangibles, Peer Social Rewards,Money, Nonacademic Activities
Academic Activities Edibles, Tangibles, Peer SocialRewards, Money, NonacademicActivities
Edibles, Tangibles, Peer SocialRewards
Money, Nonacademic Activities
Student Edibles, Peer Social Rewards Academic Activities, Adult SocialRewards, Tangibles
Money, Nonacademic Activities Adult Social Rewards, Tangibles
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ogni
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*
(Con
tinu
ed)
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TA
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tinu
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Hav
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sis)
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2.95
1.43
**
*
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Finally, individual rewards on the Reward Acceptability Survey wereanalyzed to determine whether some items were either highly acceptableor highly unacceptable across all three groups (combined adult group, stu-dents, and administrators). The results of this analysis, which focused onthe top and bottom 20 choices for each group, are reported in Table 3. Ascan be seen, only 3 of the 90 items appeared among the top 20 choices for allthree groups, and even among these 3 items, none were rated 4.0 or aboveby all groups. It is equally interesting that (a) 7 items placed among the top20 choices by both the combined adult and administrator groups were alsorated by the students as among their bottom 20 choices, and (b) 4 itemsrated by the student group to be among their top 20 choices were chosen byboth the combined adult and administrator groups to be among their bot-tom 20 choices.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of the current exploratory study was to determine whether re-wards exist that might be used to encourage improved school performanceamong adolescents, and that would be considered highly acceptable to allmajor stakeholders across the consultation ecosystem (i.e., teachers, par-ents, students, and administrators). Information such as this would be ex-tremely valuable to consultants in secondary school settings. Many effec-tive behavioral interventions rely upon the identification and contingentdelivery of potent rewards. Both treatment effectiveness and integritycould likely be enhanced by consultants’ awareness of rewards that adoles-cents typically find reinforcing and that adults find acceptable.
Unfortunately, no single item received a mean rating of 4.0 or above (ona 5-point scale) across each of the surveyed groups, thus suggesting that noreward was considered as highly acceptable to all parties. Neither werethere any categories of rewards considered highly acceptable to all groups,with no category obtaining a mean rating of 3.5 or above across the groupsof combined adults (parents and teachers), students, and administrators.Although these findings are somewhat discouraging, some solace may betaken from the fact that nothing on the Reward Acceptability Survey wasstrongly rejected by all stakeholders either. That is, no single item or cate-gory received mean ratings of 2.0 or below across all the participantgroups.
Despite the lack of individual rewards or reward categories that werehighly acceptable or unacceptable in absolute terms across all the partici-pant groups, there were some that stood out on a relative basis (see Tables
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1 and 2; Figure 1). Among these, the academic activities category seems tobe most noteworthy. The academic activities category was rated (a) secondmost acceptable by the combined adult group—coming after adult socialrewards, (b) significantly below only edibles and peer social rewards bythe student group, and (c) second most acceptable by the administrators(although no statistical tests were possible with this latter group). Addi-tionally, of the 3 items that appeared among the top 20 choices for all theparticipant groups, 2 of them fell into this category (see Table 3). These in-dividual items, describing peer tutoring and weekly grade checks, meritsome further discussion. Peer tutoring would seem to incorporate aca-demic activities along with components of peer social reward. The item re-lated to checking weekly grade sheets was probably familiar to the studentparticipants who were aware of these procedures at their school, whichtypically included receipt of a pack of gum upon completion of improvedweekly grade sheets. Students may thus have seen this item as incorporat-ing both academic activities and edibles. Taken together, these findingsmay indicate that the most pervasive support might be given to interven-tions that incorporate both academic activities (an adult preference) withedibles or peer social interaction (student preferences).
The adult social reward category also appears to warrant attention be-cause of the substantial differences that emerged between the adults andadolescents in this study concerning this group of rewards. Specifically, al-though the combined adult group rated this category as significantly moreacceptable than any of the other categories, and administrators also gave ittheir highest ranking (although this latter statement is based on only de-scriptive rather than inferential statistics), the students rated adult socialrewards as significantly below all other reward categories except for tangi-bles, with which it was tied for last. Beyond this, of the 7 individual itemsthat were among the top 20 choices for both the combined adult and ad-ministrator groups while simultaneously falling into the bottom 20 choicesfor students, 3 came from the adult social reward category. These data sug-gest that although adult social rewards may be highly regarded by adults,they are not well received by high school adolescents. Although somewhatless supportive of adult praise, and contrary to the findings of Wan andSalili (1996) for students in Hong Kong, the bulk of this study’s findings arereasonably consistent with those reported by both Caffyn (1989) andSharpe et al. (1987) for British adolescents.
Finally, nonacademic activities also received substantially different re-sponses from the adults and adolescents involved in this research. Amongthose in the combined adult group, this category was rated significantlybelow all the other reward groups except for money, with which it was tied
ACCEPTABILITY OF REWARDS IN HIGH SCHOOL 39
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for the lowest rating. Although statistical tests were not possible for the ad-ministrator group, nonacademic activities appeared to fare no betteramong these adults, in that this category received the lowest rating of allthe reward groupings. Among the students, however, nonacademic activi-ties were statistically indistinguishable from the other reward categoriesrated as their favorites (i.e., edibles, peer social rewards, and money).Finally, all 4 of the items that were among the top 20 choices of the studentsand the bottom 20 choices of both the combined adult and administratorgroups were nonacademic activities. As such, nonacademic activities ap-pear to be the mirror image of the adult social reward category. That is,they are relatively well accepted by students but likely to cause significantresistance among important adults in students’ lives. When viewed fromthis perspective, it seems unlikely that nonacademic activities would bethe reward of choice for most high school intervention programs.
From a design perspective, this study, like all research, had bothstrengths and limitations. On the positive side, it was possible to includean unusually thorough sampling of the entire teacher, parent, student, andadministrator population of the district under study. Also, the ecologicalvalidity of the research was further enhanced by using reward ideas thatwere (a) generated by the participants rather than the authors and (b) inte-grated as potential components of a “live,” ongoing incentive program.
Regarding limitations, this study included only a very small number ofadministrators and, as such, findings relating to this group should be inter-preted with considerable caution. Moreover, response rates for parentswere considerably lower than those of students (although still quite rea-sonable when compared with other studies of this genre).
A second limitation of the current research was the nature of the sample. Be-cause virtually all of the participants were White students drawn from a singleschool district, the results cannot be generalized to other more culturally diverseschools. Likewise, in view of previous research suggesting that student views to-ward rewards change as they mature (Houlihan et al., 1991; Sharpe et al., 1987),exclusive use of 10th-grade students limits the study’s external validity.
Third, our attempt to enhance the ecological validity of this study, byemploying reward items on the survey instrument that were produced byparticipants, unintentionally resulted in some wording inconsistenciesthat could have influenced acceptability ratings. For example, some itemsmade reference to the frequency of a reward (e.g., “Allow them to check onall their grades each Friday”) while others focused on goals for improve-ment (e.g., “Allow use of the courtyard during lunches following eachweek of improvement”). Whether these phrasing differences had any im-pact on participants’ responses is unknown.
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Finally, as with virtually all prior acceptability research that has beenpublished (Elliott, 1988; Reimers et al., 1987), this study was limited to pa-per-and-pencil measures rather than to behavioral observations of eachparticipant group as they interacted with the items on the Reward Accept-ability Survey. Despite growing evidence that attitudes and behavior arenot independent of each other (e.g., Cafferty, 1992; Petty, Heesacker, &Hughes, 1997; Snyder & Kendzierski, 1982), it is clear that this relationshipis complex and anything but linear. Future researchers should assess moredirectly whether treatment implementation and integrity are improvedwhen interventions are designed with attention to the acceptability of therewards that are employed.
The results of this investigation have numerous implications for educa-tional and psychological consultants. Although the current study failed tofind any rewards or reward categories that simultaneously were highly ac-ceptable to students, teachers, parents, and administrators, this does notnecessarily preclude the existence of such rewards. This was an explor-atory study, and it is possible that more extensive searches would yieldpositive results. Having noted this, however, it is important to underscorethat a relatively thorough list of rewards and reward categories were em-ployed in this research effort. As such, we suggest that consultants mustface the very real possibility that rewards that are highly acceptable to allpersons occupying the ecosystems of high school students (i.e., the stu-dents themselves, their teachers, administrators, and parents) may not ex-ist or be readily identifiable in many instances.
These findings suggest that selecting rewards for high school-based re-inforcement programs may prove to be a formidable task for consultants.Rather than simply focusing on those rewards believed to be most potent,serious thought may have to be given to determining which stimuli areboth appealing enough to students to be effective and acceptable enough toadults to be utilized as planned. In addition, it would seem to be crucial forconsultants to focus future research and practice agendas more extensivelyon issues pertaining to persuasion and interpersonal influence (Conoley &Gutkin, 1995; Erchul & Raven, 1997; Gutkin, 1997; Gutkin & Conoley, 1990;Hughes, 1992), so as to develop methodologies for altering acceptabilityperceptions regarding effective rewards. Previous work has suggestedthat it is not always the interventions or rewards themselves that are eitheracceptable or unacceptable but rather the ways in which they are pre-sented (e.g., Caffyn, 1989; Witt, Moe, Gutkin, & Andrews, 1984). Learninghow to frame rewards and reward-based interventions for high school stu-dents, teachers, parents, and administrators in ways that enhance accept-ability will, without doubt, present high school-based consultants with
ACCEPTABILITY OF REWARDS IN HIGH SCHOOL 41
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meaningful and complex challenges. Failing to attend to these issues, how-ever, will likely undercut the potency of even our very best treatment rec-ommendations, thus leading to resistance (Piersel & Gutkin, 1983; Reimerset al., 1987; Witt 1986).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Elaine Werth for her assistance in designing this study,Steve Wise for his assistance with the data analyses, and Ann Galloway andAnita Saunders for their assistance and feedback in the writing of thisstudy.
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Piersel, W. C., & Gutkin, T. B. (1983). Resistance to school-based consultation: A behavioralanalysis of the problem. Psychology in the Schools, 20, 311–320.
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Cindy L. Gray is an Intern School Psychologist for the Omaha Public Schools and a doctoralstudent in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln school psychology program. Her research in-terests include social influence, treatment acceptability, and behavior management strategies.
Terry B. Gutkin is Professor of Educational Psychology and the Director of the School Psy-chology Program at the University of Neraska–Lincoln. His primary research interests are inthe areas of ecological consultation, systems analysis, and classroom interventions.
Tim R. Riley is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Munroe–Meyer Institute for Genetics andRehabilitation. He is responsible for outreach pediatric mental health services for the Univer-sity of Nebraska Medical Center. His research interests include rural mental health.
ACCEPTABILITY OF REWARDS IN HIGH SCHOOL 43
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