The Effects of Positive Examiner Verbal Comments and Token Reinforcement on the CTONI-2 Performance of Early Elementary School Children

Seventy-two children were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions (i.e., verbal praise, token reinforcement, and standard administration groups) to study the effects of different incentive conditions on the CTONI-2 performance of 6 -7 year old children. The participants in the token reinforcement condition were rewarded with tokens that were exchanged for reinforcers for providing CTONI-2 responses. The participants in the other conditions were verbally praised for their effort or received neutral comments following the same schedule. Mean scores for each group on the CTONI-2 Pictorial Scale, Geometric Scale, and Full Scale composite scores were compared using MANOVA and ANOVA procedures, respectively, and no significant differences were observed. The results were generally inconsistent with the literature that supports the hypothesis that young children perform better on an individually administered nonverbal intelligence test when given token reinforcement and/or verbal praise in comparison to groups who receive standard administration. However, analyses revealed potential interactions among demographic and condition variables that may inform future directions in the research of standardized testing.