Turning the Tables: Using Students’ Motivation to Escape Work to Improve Task Productivity and Accuracy

Abstract

Differential negative reinforcement of alternative behavior is a technique in which students can escape a portion of a task they perceive to be unpleasant by reaching a predetermined criterion. In this article, we define the negative reinforcement trap and review research on differential negative reinforcement of alternative behavior. We then describe procedural steps for teachers to effectively prevent students from escaping tasks or activities they find unpleasant as well as increase work accuracy and productivity.

Keywords

applied behavior analysis academic behavior(s)practices efficacy/effectiveness behavioral interventions

There is, arguably, no environment in which children operate that places as many demands on them as does a school. School professionals have rules for almost every setting included in classrooms, lunchrooms, and hallways as well as during recess and on busses. Students are inundated with written instructions and verbal directions—both given to individuals and groups of students. When it comes to school curriculum, not all students equally enjoy, like, or tolerate all subjects. Therefore, students’ behaviors will vary depending on the teacher, academic content, prerequisite skill level, classroom setting, peers, and a host of other contributing environmental factors such as social learning elements and reinforcement histories (e.g., Bandura, 1977; Skinner, 1938).

Students display behaviors on a continuum of what educators typically consider appropriate versus inappropriate. Students who are cooperative, attentive, follow directions, and stay on task are perceived as exhibiting appropriate, compliant behaviors. Conversely, students who are noncompliant, disruptive, fail to follow directions, and are off task pose a major behavior management issue for teachers—especially students who display the most challenging behaviors, such as those with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). For these students, traditional disciplinary procedures frequently fail (Maag, 2018a). If typical forms of corrective action did not fail, then these students would not be considered a challenge.

Students’ challenging behaviors also serve a purpose—typically to receive attention, obtain access to objects and activities, or escape a task or assignment perceived to be unpleasant (Maag & Kauffman, 2022). There is variation in the severity of behaviors students perform to escape an unpleasant activity or task. For example, some students can escape the unpleasantness of completing a math worksheet simply by writing down any answer as quickly as possible regardless of whether it is correct. Other students, such as those with EBD, may display more overtly challenging behaviors to escape a task, such as running around the classroom, yelling, throwing objects, destroying property, or becoming physically or verbally aggressive.

These behaviors usually result in a student being removed from the classroom and sent to the principal’s office. This type of exclusionary action creates a vicious cycle called the negative reinforcement trap between teachers and their students. When students misbehave to escape an unpleasant activity or task, that misbehavior has been negatively reinforced and will likely continue to occur because it terminates the perceived distasteful lesson or worksheet. Similarly, teachers are negatively reinforced when they remove the student from their classroom because that action eliminates the unpleasantness the teacher experiences from the student’s misbehavior, hence perpetuating this trap.

One way teachers can provide students with an opportunity to escape a task appropriately and, consequently, avoid the negative reinforcement trap is to use the very same consequence (escaping the task) as a reinforcer for completing schoolwork, a strategy referred to as differential negative reinforcement of alternative behavior (DNRA). Therefore, the purpose of this article is threefold. First, we describe the negative reinforcement trap in more detail, including its relation to a student’s misbehavior to escape a task they perceive to be unpleasant. Second, we provide a brief review of research on DNRA. We believe this summary affords teachers a basic understanding of how DNRA has been used and different ways that it can be used in classrooms. Finally, we outline the procedural steps for teachers to implement DNRA. Our goal is to provide teachers with a tool that can prevent students from behaving in ways to escape a task or activity during independent paper-and-pencil practice, such as completing worksheets.

The Negative Reinforcement Trap

From an operant theory standpoint, humans perform behavior for one of two reasons: (a) obtain something they want (i.e., positive reinforcement) or (b) escape something they find aversive (i.e., negative reinforcement). Positive reinforcement occurs when a consequence introduced after a behavior results in a future increase of that behavior. Negative reinforcement occurs when the consequence for behavior terminates something unpleasant and results in a future increase in that behavior. Basically, it feels good to perform a behavior that stops something that feels bad.

Negative reinforcement sometimes gets a bad rap because people misunderstand it as a form of punishment. Negative reinforcement is not punishment. It results in an increase in behavior. Why do you scratch an itch? Because when you did it in the past it eliminated (escaped) an aversive condition. That is likely what you will do in the future, proving that you are under a negative reinforcement contingency (escaping an aversive itch). Why will you pay your phone bill next month? Because you want to avoid having your phone carrier turn off your service, proving that you are under a negative reinforcement contingency (avoiding an aversive consequence).

Negative reinforcement contingencies are not “negative.” They help us adapt to undesirable, unpleasant, noxious, disagreeable, and unwelcome events in the environment. A problem arises when a person seeks to avoid or escape a condition that is necessary to their health, thriving, or learning like a student trying to escape an important curricular assignment.

Some experts believe negative reinforcement is more powerful than positive reinforcement because the former is hard-wired into humans’ survival instinct. That is, flight is preferred to fight (Maag, 2018a). When educators rely on exclusionary disciplinary practices such as having a student sit in a timeout chair in the back of a classroom, spending time outside the classroom in a hallway, or being sent to the principal’s office, they may believe that they are using punishment to reduce or eliminate behavior they find aversive when in fact they may actually be negatively reinforcing the behavior and increasing its future likelihood of occurrence.

For example, a student may make animal noises in class, a behavior teachers find aversive. A teacher can terminate this behavior by sending the student to some form of timeout. Therefore, the teacher’s behavior of sending the student to timeout has been negatively reinforced and is likely to be performed more frequently in the future when students misbehave. This phenomenon leads to the aforementioned negative reinforcement trap. It is a trap in which many teachers are caught without even realizing it. An unfortunate, unintended consequence is a likely increase in the use of presumed punishment practices which is unwittingly reinforcing a student’s aversive behavior and thereby increasing it.

The negative reinforcement trap is not a new phenomenon. It was first coined by Patterson (1975) nearly 50 years ago to explain the coercive relationships that often evolve between parents and children. Such relationships can also be observed between teachers and students. Nevertheless, it has rarely appeared in the literature when describing operant techniques and models for understanding why students’ misbehavior may not decrease when teachers use presumed but ineffectual punishment practices in response to the misbehavior.

Basically, students learn to behave in ways that allow them to escape aversive stimuli. Returning to the previous example, if the student removed from class for making animal noises finds the academic lesson to be aversive, and if sitting in the hall or being sent to the principal’s office terminates the aversive instructional activity, making animal noises has been negatively reinforced and may continue to be performed. The trap springs shut when the teacher terminates the animal noises (the aversive stimulus for the teacher) by sending the student out of the classroom to the principal’s office, indicating that the teacher also is under a negative reinforcement contingency. The teacher temporarily eliminates the aversive condition but increases its future probability.

This trap perpetuates a cycle in which both teachers and students are negatively reinforced for engaging in counterproductive behaviors. The use of DNRA is a way to eliminate the negative reinforcement trap because the teacher provides negative reinforcement to the student who escapes an aversive instructional task by engaging in appropriate behavior (work completion), which in turn results in a reduction and possible elimination of student misbehavior—the aversive condition motivating the teacher’s behavior. In so doing, the teacher has turned the student’s motivation for escaping classroom assignments into a strategy for increasing the student’s work productivity. The vicious cycle can be turned into a virtuous cycle of learning for both student and teacher alike.

Appropriate Uses of DNRA Based on a Brief Review of the Research

The purpose of this section is to explain and examine ways DNRA has been used in research to terminate students’ inappropriate escape-motivated behaviors. Understanding previous research on DNRA is important for being able to implement this technique successfully in the classroom. The first four studies reviewed illustrate examples of how DNRA can be used in the classroom using short breaks to improve students’ work behaviors and decrease inappropriate behaviors. The last two reviewed studies provide a different approach to implementing DNRA by permitting students to escape a portion of a task by meeting a predetermined performance criterion.

Golonka et al. (2000) used DNRA for two females to reduce their aberrant behaviors and demonstrate working harder during a task using two types of escape conditions: (a) receiving a break alone (time away from the task) and (b) receiving an enriched break in which they had access to social attention and preferred activities. Fewer inappropriate behaviors were demonstrated during the task when they had access to the enriched break. Piazza et al. (1996) conducted a study with an 11-year-old boy with autism who was displaying aggression (hitting, kicking), self-injury (hand biting, head banging), and disruption (destroying property, throwing objects) to escape an instructional task. The boy was permitted to leave the task for a predetermined amount of time when he was engaged in the instructional lesson.

A similar study was conducted by Marcus and Vollmer (1995) with a 5-year-old girl with Down syndrome who displayed severe disruption during instructional sessions. The girl was instructed to remain seated at a table while putting together blocks and stringing rubber shapes on a cord. She received a 20-s break from the task when disruptive behaviors were below a predetermined criterion. Roberts et al. (1995) used DNRA to reduce self-injurious behavior in a 4-year-old girl with a severe intellectual disability during instructional tasks requiring appropriate bathing and tooth-brushing behaviors during 15–20 min sessions. If the girl complied with instructions to complete the task within 3 s, she would receive a 15-s break from the task for each 20 consecutive seconds in which she did not display any self-injurious behaviors.

These four studies, collectively, indicated that the DNRA approach of giving short breaks from work were effective for increasing appropriate behaviors (e.g., bathing, tooth-brushing, stringing beads) and decreasing inappropriate behaviors (e.g., aggression, self-injury, and destroying property) when children with moderate to severe disabilities are involved in a variety of tasks. However, the focus of the current article is how teachers can use DNRA to improve academic responding for children either with high-incidence disabilities (e.g., EBD) or those who otherwise display severe challenging behaviors in classroom settings—especially during independent practice such as completing worksheets. The DNRA intervention in the next two studies paradoxically increased students’ work productivity by contingently reducing how much work they had to do. This approach can be referred to as the “work-reduction” DNRA strategy.

Holtz and Daly (2021) examined the effects of DNRA on the quantity of high school students’ writing. Participants were given story starters and told to write about the given topic. Data were collected on the number of attempted revisions, number of correct revisions, and number of attempted unique revisions. Participants were told that if they reached or exceeded a certain concealed criterion number of revisions (number on notecard in a sealed envelope), they did not have to complete another writing task. Results showed that adding DNRA to the instructional package (in other words, allowing them to avoid further writing by revising their work) increased the number of attempted revisions, the number of correct revisions made, and the number of unique revisions.

Goehring and Maag (2020) conducted a similar study but focused on reading comprehension for three elementary-grade students. Reading comprehension was evaluated using maze assessments which consisted of stories with every fourth or fifth word omitted and replaced with a three-item word bank from which participants had to provide the correct missing word. Children were given two maze worksheets to complete throughout baseline sessions. When DNRA was implemented, students who reached a predetermined criterion written as a number on a notecard in a sealed envelope on the first writing task would not have to complete the second task. All three participants’ reading comprehension accuracy scores increased during the DNRA contingency.

Which approach is better, the work-reduction method or the short-break method? A common concern when using DNRA as a way for a student to escape a portion of the task by reaching a predetermined but unknown criterion is what happens if the student does not reach the criterion on the first half of the assignment and, consequently, is required to complete the entire task or worksheet. Will the student become angry and engage in additional challenging behaviors to vent their frustration? It certainly is possible. Conversely, using the small-break method, what if a student earns a short break and then does not want to return to complete the remainder of the assignment and, consequently, also engages in more challenging escape behaviors? This result too is certainly possible.

Obviously, both DNRA approaches have upsides and downsides. Furthermore, no intervention is perfect—especially for students with EBD. In fact, reinforcement delivery systems (e.g., token economy, behavioral contract, and group-oriented contingencies) must constantly be modified or changed for students who display the most challenging behaviors (Maag, 2018a). Students can satiate on the reinforcement delivery method just as easily as they can reach the satiation threshold for the reinforcers. Therefore, the two DNRA approaches are not mutually exclusive and teachers can try both to see which works best depending on the student, academic content, type of worksheets, and other environmental variables.

Regardless of which one is used, the key is to include a positive-reinforcement component. For example, if a teacher believes a student will become angry if they cannot escape a portion of a worksheet or task, then positive reinforcement can be delivered after the student finishes the assignment. This condition is built into the DNRA contingency and explained prior to it being implemented. Conversely, for the student who does not want to leave the short break to continue the assignment, then positive reinforcement can be contingent upon the student returning to the work area within 20 s. Another approach using negative reinforcement would be telling the student that returning promptly to the assignment results in not having to complete the next two problems. This last suggestion is basically combining aspects of both DNRA approaches.

DNRA as a Motivational Strategy

To be successful and judicious in the use of DNRA, teachers must understand that it is a motivational strategy and not a teaching strategy. There are two explanations why students struggle with academic tasks. The problem could be due to a skill deficit. That is, the student does not possess the requisite skills or subskills required to complete a given task. A skill deficit requires teachers to conduct skill-based and general outcome probes to determine the missing subskills and whether the deficit is at the accuracy or fluency level of proficiency. A performance deficit, on the other hand, is one in which a student possesses all the requisite skills but chooses not to use them for whatever reason. A student might find the work boring, be uninterested in the content, or not like putting forth the effort to complete a task accurately. It is the latter case in which DNRA can be most effective.

The irony is that some teachers lament the fact that a student knows how to do the work but chooses not to engage in the task. This type of student behavior becomes a frustration for the teacher and often one for which they have no solution. However, that frustration can be reframed to mean that the student is displaying a performance deficit and not a skill deficit. The good news is that no additional instruction is required and, consequently, presents an opportunity for a teacher to try DNRA as a motivational strategy. Therefore, teachers should be strategic and cautious so that it is only used when students have performance and not skill deficits.

Procedural Steps for Implementing DNRA in Classrooms

The procedural steps described for implementing DNRA address teachers who are having difficulty managing certain students’ behavior during independent practice while they are completing worksheets or related activities in mathematics, reading, spelling, or writing assignments. Figure 1 provides a visualization of the steps described subsequently. Prior to this description, a brief introduction to each of the steps and how they fit together is presented.

Figure 1.

Flowchart of Steps for Implementing Differential Negative Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior (DNRA).

To use DNRA effectively, teachers need to first identify appropriate independent practice activities that provide students with sufficient opportunities to develop fluency but still either escape a portion of the task or worksheet or receive short breaks contingent upon reaching small criterion through the entire assignment. An important instructional consideration is that there must be an assignment for which sufficient practice is presented for a student to build fluency but still have an opportunity to either escape a portion of that task or take short breaks while completing it.

For example, is it necessary for a student to have a worksheet with 20 arithmetic problems or would 15 provide sufficient student practice for a teacher to evaluate their performance? To use DNRA, teachers need to be flexible and realistic in the purpose of independent practice worksheets and employ them in the best possible ways. Worksheet use is not only to provide practice for struggling students academically, but also for those who lack motivation for practicing material to build their proficiency. The same holds true for DNRA in which students take short breaks and then return to the task. Under this contingency, students will obviously not be completing as much of the assignment as their peers since most independent practice activities have a scheduled duration of time that may fluctuate slightly depending on the content and type of worksheets but usually remains constant.

Second, teachers need to determine whether students’ misbehavior to escape a task is due to a skill deficit or a performance deficit. Once worksheets have been developed and it has been determined the problem is a performance deficit, a teacher needs to determine a criterion for the student to either escape some portion of the assignment or take short breaks interspersed throughout the entire task. That is, teachers need to determine the level of accuracy required on the first part of the task to ensure sufficient practice but still allow a student to escape having to complete the entire assignment. Or they need to determine smaller criterion interspersed for students taking short breaks and deciding the duration of those breaks. It is important for teachers to explain the DNRA contingency in a way that presents it as a game to enhance student buy-in and interest. The final step is determining the effectiveness of DNRA. Table 1 presents the protocol for using both types of DNRA interventions.

Table 1.

Differential Negative Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior (DNRA) Protocol.

Procedural Steps	Example
Step 1. Set up and use a measurement system to inform decision-making.
Gather appropriate independent practice worksheets and standardize the time allocated for students to work on them.	The teacher used practice worksheets from the curricular materials that included 24 2-digit by 2-digit addition problems with regrouping and allocated 20 min a day for independent practice
Set a goal for the desired number of items/problems you want the student to complete correctly during the allotted independent practice sessions.	The teacher wanted Carlson to correctly answer 16 problems a day out of the 24-problem worksheet.
Measure performance during independent practice sessions.	The teacher presented a worksheet with typical assignment directions. The teacher supervised Carlson’s work completion, redirecting him to the task when needed and ignoring as much inappropriate behavior as possible. The teacher collected the worksheet at the end of independent practice, and determined the median class score and that of Carlson.
Step 2. Do a performance-deficit analysis.
Prepare a menu of three or four items to be used as rewards for improving performance.	Be ready to give immediate access after the session.
Present an independent work assignment and offer a choice of three or four of the strongest rewards available for improving their performance by at least 50% more than over baseline score (i.e., × 1.5) and instruct the student to complete the assignment.	Say, “You can earn a reward for improving your score on this assignment. At the end of the session, I will open this envelope and take out a card that has a score on it. If your score matches or is higher than the number on the card, you will be able to choose a reward from this menu.” [SHOW THE MENU]
Score the results.	Interpret the results: Determine whether it is a skill or a performance deficit. Did the positive reinforcer improve performance to a reasonably acceptable level? Consider using positive reinforcement along with DNRA if doing both is manageable.
Step 3. Prepare for and deliver DNRA independent practice sessions.
Generate a “bank” of back-up tasks.	Examples include crossword puzzle or word search worksheets.
Establish a criterion for earning breaks or escaping a portion of the assignment.	What is the student’s current baseline performance? How many items can you eliminate without compromising learning either by earning breaks or escaping a portion of the assignment?
Present the worksheet and explain how many items the student must complete to earn a break and how they can signal that they reached the criterion and whether they will obtain a reward or not. If a positive reinforcement contingency is used, explain also how they can earn the reward.	There are two variations: Accurately complete an overall number of items and intersperse breaks for completing a smaller number of items. Or, assign a larger number of items than the previous option and tell student that they can get out of having to do more work by completing that number of items. Directions for both are presented below: EITHER “I want you to complete 16 problems today. But I’ll give you a brief break every time you complete 4 problems. Just raise your hand and I’ll check your work. At the end of this session, I will open this envelope and take out a card that has a score on it. If your score matches or is higher than the number on the card, you will be able to choose a reward from this menu.” [SHOW THE MENU] OR “I am going to score the first 12 problems on this 24-item worksheet to see how many you get correct. Just raise your hand when you finish the first 12 and I’ll check your work. If your score on the first 12 is higher than the number in this envelope, you do not have to finish the rest of the assignment.” Provide high-interest worksheets for remainder of the 20-min independent practice activity.
Step 4. If using the small-break DNRA approach, continue with the following. If using the work reduction strategy, then provide high-interest worksheets such as crossword puzzles or word search sheets.
Supervise their work completion.	Monitor their performance, praising for efforts and completion, and redirecting to the task as appropriate.
Allow them to take a brief break for meeting the criterion if using the small-break approach.	“Well done! You completed 4 problems. You get a 2-min break.” Breaks will slow things down, but the number of problems to be completed can be increased over time.
Following the break, redirect the student to the task and remind them of the criterion if using the small-break approach.	“Okay. Break is over. When you complete the next 5 problems, raise your hand and I’ll give you another break.”
Repeat the last two steps until the 20-min independent practice activity is over.

Determining a Skill or Performance Deficit

After creating independent practice worksheets, teachers need to ensure they have determined the escape behavior is not due to a lack of requisite skills but rather one of motivation before using DNRA. The strategy for determining a skill versus performance deficit is based on the work of several researchers over the last two decades (Daly et al., 1997, 2020; Duhon et al., 2004). An example of this process appears below.

A student is engaging in inappropriate escape behaviors during independent practice where everyone is completing a 24-problem math worksheet containing 2-digit by 2-digit addition problems with regrouping. The teacher first collects the completed worksheets from everyone in class and determines the median score. The mean can be misleading because of outliers on both the highest and lowest scores. The teacher determines the class median score is 21 problems correct and the target student’s score is 12 correct. That score is then multiplied by 1.5 (12 × 1.5 = 18). The number 1.5 indicates a 50% improvement (i.e., 18) over the student’s initial score of 12 and will be used as the criterion on a subsequent worksheet with the same number and type of problems to determine the type of deficit.

Next, the teacher must obtain a powerful reinforcer that will motivate the student to score higher than they did on the classwide worksheet. Finding a reinforcer may be determined using any number of preference assessments (Daly et al., 2020). The teacher offers the student a choice of potential reinforcers for meeting or exceeding a specific criterion level of problems correct. The criterion (i.e., 18 problems correct) is written on a card and placed in an envelope. The teacher keeps the criterion unknown to the student so they otherwise do not stop working after that criterion would be met. The student is told that if their performance meets or exceeds the number on the card, then the selected reinforcer will be delivered. If the criterion is met, the teacher may assume a performance deficit and the process of implementing the DNRA contingency can proceed. Conversely, if the student does not meet the criterion, then the teacher may infer the student has a skill deficit and additional remediation may be necessary, and not just finding a powerful motivator.

Determining the Criterion for the Student to Escape

From the previous assignment implementation, the teacher determines that the student would get sufficient practice by correctly answering 12 problems on a 24-problem math worksheet containing 2-digit by 2-digit addition problems with regrouping. The criterion for students to escape can be determined using either the work reduction or short breaks strategies.

Work reduction strategy

This process begins in a similar way as noted previously, but the goal at this point is to determine a criterion for a student to escape the second part of an assignment in the next practice session. To begin, the teacher should collect five worksheets the student completed with different 24 2-digit by 2-digit addition problems with regrouping. This collection is referred to as baseline because it gives the teacher a pre-DNRA picture of the student’s performance. During this baseline phase, only the first 12 problems are scored as correct or incorrect and that average calculated even though the student is required to complete all five worksheets. The reason for scoring only the first 12 problems is because once the DNRA contingency is in effect, if the student meets a prespecified criterion on the first 12, then they can escape the final 12 problems.

The teacher determines that the baseline average number of problems correct for the first 12 problems is 5. That score is then multiplied by 1.5 (i.e., 5 × 1.5 = 7.5) which is rounded up to 8. The teacher writes the numbers six through eight on separate pieces of paper and places them in an envelope. If the student scores between six and eight correct answers, they are permitted to escape completing the remainder of the worksheet. Because the criterion is unknown, the student should be motivated to write more correct answers, hopefully 12 or more, to meet the unknown criteria. The initial criterion range is set low enough to set up the student for success, hence, the reason to permit them to escape the remainder of the task after writing only between six and eight correct answers. This process is repeated with increasingly higher ranges of correct answers required until at least three subsequent worksheets have 12 or more correct answers which was the teacher’s goal for the 24-problem worksheet.

Short breaks strategy

Determining the criterion for the short breaks strategy differs somewhat from the work reduction approach because brief short breaks are interspersed throughout the independent practice session. Thus, the same 24-problem worksheet can be used, but the criterion is determined by the number of problems a student can complete before they lose interest and begin to engage in escape behaviors. For example, if a student can complete four problems, then the criterion could be set that the student must write four correct answers prior to getting a break. To determine the length of the break, the teacher can time how long it takes the student to complete the four problems and use that number for the break. If a student takes 2 min to write four answers, for example, then their break would be 2 min long.

Preparing and Delivering DNRA Independent Practice Sessions

The idea of using a powerful positive reinforcer to determine a performance deficit can be effective, but the assumption is that no reinforcer, no matter how preferrable, is as impactful as the reinforcing value of being able to escape (i.e., negative reinforcement) a task a student finds unpleasant. At this point, the teacher decides whether the independent practice worksheets are amenable to using DNRA. In other words, can the worksheet give the teacher meaningful information about a student’s performance while still permitting the student to escape part of the task? The issue pertains for worksheets in mathematics, spelling, or writing.

Can a student get adequate practice completing a one-page essay instead of two pages, write 10 spelling words correctly instead of 20, or complete 10 problems accurately on 20-problem math worksheet? These questions and considerations must be factored into the decision of which type of independent practice activities a teacher finds appropriate for using DNRA. Regardless, given a 20-problem worksheet as an example, teachers should ask themselves which would be preferable, having the student accurately complete 10 math problems or requiring them to complete all 20 problems but only get five or six of them correct?

The DNRA intervention requires teachers to have a sufficient number and types of “backup” tasks or worksheets for a student who has met the predetermined criterion and able to escape a portion of the initial assignment all students were required to complete. It would not be feasible, nor desirable, for students who escaped a portion of the initial assignment to simply sit at their desk and do nothing.

It is important for teachers to understand that some students may find certain types of worksheets unpleasant while others could potentially be quite reinforcing. For example, a student may find an arithmetic worksheet unpleasant but enjoy completing a crossword puzzle or a word search activity. Consequently, the latter two would create an enriched escape environment such as the one Golonka and colleagues (2000) used in their study described previously. Teachers can present different types of worksheet activities to students and have them rank order the ones they enjoy completing the most to their least favorite.

Explaining the DNRA Contingency to the Student

After the student completes the first five worksheets (they do not all have to be completed on one day but rather can follow the teacher’s typical schedule for independent worksheet practice time) and the average for the first 12 problems has been calculated, the teacher is ready to explain the DNRA contingency to the student. A new worksheet with 24 2-digit by 2-digit addition problems with regrouping is presented to the student. The teacher explains that the student will receive similar worksheets as the previous ones, but this time, he can escape completing the second half of the assignment (or escaping the last five problems depending on whether the teacher wants more than 10 problems completed) by meeting or exceeding a secret criterion sealed in an envelope.

Prior to the session, the teacher should write different numbers representing various criteria on individual slips of paper and place them in the envelope. The student is reminded of his average number of correct problems on the previous five worksheets for the first 12 problems as well as telling him that a higher score on the first 12 problems would be necessary to escape the last half of the worksheet. Immediately after the student completes the first 12 problems, their score is calculated and announced. The teacher then lets the student pull one slip of paper randomly from the envelope (numbers six through eight), and if his score was at least as high as that number, then the assignment is considered completed, meaning that he has escaped doing the rest of the worksheet.

To illustrate the short-break method using the 24 problem 2-digit plus 2-digit addition problems with regrouping, recall that the teacher determined the median score for the entire class was 21 problems correct. The student’s threshold for writing answers is four at a time. Therefore, the student is told that for every four correct answers, they can have a 2-min break. The same issue of having back-up high preference break worksheets applies here as well as the contingency for escaping a certain portion of the assignment. Namely, the teacher does not want the student just sitting doing nothing.

The independent practice time is 20 min long. If the student writes four correct answers in 2-min and has a 2-min break, then the student could write 16 out of 24 correct answers. Using this approach, the teacher has to decide if 16 correct answers provides enough independent practice to develop fluency. Approximately, the same number of answers written results for either of the two DNRA approaches. Under this condition, the 2-min breaks may keep the student motivated to work but having a mystery criterion in a sealed envelope with a reward written on the back may also improve motivation and performance since the breaks only let them escape for short periods of time but not before the 20-min independent practice session is over.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of DNRA

There are three phases to evaluating the effectiveness of DNRA which appear in Figure 2 as an example: baseline, performance-deficit analysis (PDA) and a DNRA intervention phase. Baseline allows for interpreting how large an effect the intervention produces. A single baseline session may be sufficient if the results are consistent with what the teacher has observed of the student’s performance in the classroom in the past. If results seem inconsistent with what the teacher regularly sees in the student’s behavior, they should conduct several sessions to establish a stable level of performance. The example in Figure 2 indicates the teacher judged that a single session validly represented the student’s typical performance in the classroom.

Figure 2.

Sample Graph Showing Differential Negative Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior (DNRA) Effectiveness.

The PDA session is then implemented. The DNRA approach is an appropriate strategy only if the student has a performance deficit. Consequently, this condition is important to decide whether DNRA should or should not be used. The final phase gives the results of DNRA over five sessions. It is noteworthy that there was an immediate increase in performance in both the PDA and DNRA phases relative to baseline. When DNRA was used, performance dipped slightly after the first session but rose steadily after that, suggesting that the intervention was effective. This type of data-based evaluation confirms that the strategy was either effective for the student or ineffective.

If the intervention is not effective, is it because the student does in fact have a skill deficit that was misdiagnosed in the PDA? The worksheets may vary in difficulty more than the teacher thought and might be a reason for poor results. Does the DNRA strategy need to be strengthened with better positive reinforcers as an additional consequence for work completion? This might be the appropriate conclusion if the student’s improvement is variable or smaller than expected.

Tips for Implementing DNRA

There are several considerations, or tips, for implementing the steps of DNRA that are important for teachers to address. First, there must be work that provides for sufficient practice but long enough that students can escape the second half or some portion of a worksheet or task. Not all independent study activities provide that opportunity. Second, teachers should ensure they are setting up the student for success by having achievable criteria to escape a portion of an assignment or conditions under which short breaks are used. Third, teachers must have alternative tasks in which a student can engage while taking a break so as not to disrupt other students who may still be working. Fourth, there has to be an understanding with the other students so they do not say, “That’s not fair! How come Judy doesn’t have to finish all her worksheet but we do.”

Selecting an Appropriate Assignment

An important consideration is that there must be an assignment for which sufficient practice is presented for a student to build fluency but still have an opportunity to escape a portion of that task. Tackling this concern may require a teacher to rethink what type of independent practice activities are presented to students. For example, is it necessary for a student to have a worksheet with 20 arithmetic problems or would 15 provide sufficient student practice for a teacher to evaluate their performance? To use DNRA properly, teachers need to be flexible and realistic in the purpose of independent practice worksheets and employ them in the best possible ways not only to provide practice for struggling students academically but also for those who do not need additional instruction but instead lack motivation.

Setting Up Students to Succeed

It is important to set up students who display challenging behaviors for success when implementing DNRA. Otherwise, if a student does not meet the criterion on the first part of the assignment and, consequently, must complete the remainder, they may become angry and display additional inappropriate behaviors. To avoid this situation, it is important to remember how criteria are established for students to escape a portion of a task. For example, during a five worksheet baseline, a student’s highest score is 6 problems correct, then adding 50% more to that number would be 9 problems correct. However, the numbers 7, 8, and 9 are placed on separate pieces of paper. The student then pulls one piece out of a sealed envelope. Hence, there is a 30% chance the student will only have to complete one more problem than their highest baseline score. If this approach is too strict, then a teacher can take the baseline average score, instead of the highest score, and add 50% more problems to that number. This strategy results in the student potentially selecting a criterion lower than their highest score during baseline while concurrently building compliance momentum (Maag, 2020). Similarly, using the small breaks approach, the teacher must decide how many correct answers the student must write given the constraints of a 20-min independent practice session and accounting for small breaks.

Having a Bank of Backup Tasks

The DNRA intervention requires teachers to have a sufficient number and types of backup tasks or worksheets for a student who has met the predetermined criterion and is able to escape a portion of the initial assignment all students were required to complete. It would not be feasible, nor desirable, for students who escaped a portion of the initial assignment to simply sit at their desk and do nothing. The same holds true for the short breaks strategy. It is important for teachers to understand that some students may find certain types of worksheets unpleasant while others could potentially be quite reinforcing. Consequently, it is important for teachers to follow the process for selecting backup reinforcers described earlier.

Will Other Students Think DNRA Is Not Fair?

The last concern is one that teachers often lament on a regular, but erroneous, basis: “What if other students say that’s not fair that George doesn’t have to finish the entire assignment?” Put another way, teachers are worried about a “contagion effect” in which all students will want the same thing as the student receiving the DNRA contingency. Maag (2018b) previously discussed this issue, particularly as it pertains to making accommodations for students who are either struggling academically or behaviorally. If a teacher is using a DNRA contingency, it means classmates have seen the target student engaging in escape behaviors and previously complete very little or none of an assignment. Yet now they are seeing the student complete some of the work (e.g., writing 10 correct answers). Furthermore, a teacher can quietly praise the student for meeting the secret criteria and seamlessly replace the original assignment with the highly enriched worksheet (e.g., crossword puzzles or word searches). It is our contention that contagion is much more of a teacher issue than it is a student issue.

Conclusion

The DNRA strategy has been demonstrated to be an effective, simple, easy-to-implement technique for teachers to improve the accuracy and productivity of students’ independent work, whether that be a worksheet of some type, writing a story, or practice writing spelling words. It works equally well whether the teacher chooses to use small breaks to increase accuracy or the option in which the student escapes a second portion of the assignment. Because of its effectiveness and simplicity, DNRA would be considered to possess high social validity—the latter of which addresses whether a relevant audience (e.g., educators, mental health providers) find interventions in real-life settings to be acceptable in terms of their goals, methods, personnel, outcomes, and ease of integration into the consumer’s current environment and responsibilities (Schwartz & Baer, 1991). Social validity is a measure of consumer satisfaction.

The DNRA approach is appealing for a couple of reasons. First, it is cheap—not costing the teacher anything other than a little time to implement the strategy. What might not be evident to a teacher who is already overwhelmed with a student’s misbehavior is that DNRA can be a time saver in the long run. It is easy to overlook how much time a teacher is already spending on dealing with problem behavior prior to intervention. A well-behaved student who is getting more work done than prior to getting breaks requires less time for behavior management problems and makes the classroom run more smoothly. Establishing a baseline in the manner described in this article can help a teacher to work incrementally toward the goal.

The teacher may be compromising their expectations for work completion a little at first but may improve student productivity and behavior relatively quickly and shape increases in work completion and accuracy over time as they increase the criteria for earning breaks. Besides, the student is not meeting the teacher’s expectations anyway. So, a brief compromise is probably a better long-term strategy.

The second advantage to DNRA is that it capitalizes on the student’s motivation to escape doing work. If students do not want to do all the work, we can help them out by giving them a break (O’Connor & Daly, 2018). We can make it easier for students to escape work by doing work than by engaging in disruptive classroom behavior. Who does not like getting a break from work? The other benefit of this strategy is that the teacher can praise and reward briefer amounts of work completion and, again, shape longer periods of productivity, thereby turning the tables on the student’s motivation to escape work but doing so in a productive and appropriate fashion.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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