​​We had earlier looked at type of reinforcements and their effect on performance. Equally important is going to be the aspect optimizing the schedules for reinforcements. Some of the different schedules of reinforcement that can be applied to your team members as below:

Fixed Interval

Fixed Ratio

Variable Interval

Variable Ratio

In a breakthrough research done with a set of teachers who were given variable ratio reinforcement to grade the answer papers please refer to the results below:

Baseline Compensation: $1.5 per hour And then Bonuses were introduced:

Bonus in condition 1:

• 50 cents per 1 exam sheet if correctly guess a coin flip

Bonus in condition 2:

• 25 cents per one exam sheet, guaranteed (no coin flip)

In another breakthrough variable ratio program introduced by New York Life Insurance there was a lottery system introduced for employees with perfect attendance even though the odds of winning such a lottery was very low. Surprisingly it reduced the employee absenteeism by 21%  – Source: Romero & Kleiner (2000)

Key Takeaways!

Now let us look at the scenario below and answer what could be the right approach 😊

Think About It!

Goal

Get your daughter to do her homework

Which schedule of reinforcement would most effectively motivate your child to do her homework and keep doing her homework in the future?

Happy Guessing!! 😊………………………………………………………………………………………………..

If you answered “C” you were right!!