Effective components of contingency contracts with academic behaviors of college students

Components of contractual arrangements for self-monitored study behaviors of college students were assessed in three experiments. Comparisons were made between self-monitoring, verbal specification of contingencies, and a formal contingency contract which contained both written specification of contingencies and a written agreement. The treatments were implemented in a modified Personalized System of Instruction and evaluated with a between-subject design in Experiment I, an ABA withdrawal design in Experiment II, and an ABAB withdrawal design in Experiment III. Results of all three experiments indicated that the naturalistic behaviors of study-time and study-questions answered could be reliably and equally increased and/or maintained by either the formal contractual agreement or verbal specification of contingencies in comparison to self-monitoring. Thus, the instructional and reinforcement variables of contingency contracts constituted the effective components, and written specifications and agreements were an unnecessary component in the control of these behaviors. However, academic performance was not influenced by manipulation of study-time and study-questions answered, suggesting that these were not important behaviors in the improvement of study skills.