Does Teaching Student Teachers about Behaviour Modification Techniques improve their Teaching Performance in the Classroom?

An attempt was made to study the effects of a course in behaviour modification on the performance of (mature) student teachers in practical teaching. The study, in which 110 students were involved, showed that students who had taken a course in behaviour modification received higher grades on various measures of teaching performance than the control group, but that only the difference on overall rating of teaching performance was statistically significant. There was, however, a marked and significant change in the attitudes of the experimental group of twenty-five students towards behavioural teaching methods.