Imprisoned Resources–Innovative Techniques in Educating Prison Inmates.

The effectiveness of employing educationally advanced inmates as one-to-one basic education tutors for inmate students was evaluated. In conjunction with this evaluation, an experimental study of the. most efficient material presentation and testing techniques using this manpower resource was conducted. Tutors and students were selected from inmates participating in an ongoing experi4ntai-demonstration token economy project located at an institution for adult mali felons. Three different modes of presenting programmed material (English 2600) and MO modes of testing both immediate (one day) and long-term (one week) retention were used, and the effectiveness of these modes was assessed in terms of accuracy and response rate. One mode of presentation involved the use of the programmed text in the usual manner, with no specification of response topography. For the second mode, the course was cut into frames for use with a specially developed “teaching madhine,” requiring a written response to each frame. In the third mode, frames were pasted to index cards with the answers on the reverse side. Tutors presented questions, acknowledged responses, indicated correct and incorrect answers, and discussed errors following each learning session. In this mode, Precision Teaching, a verbal response and interpersonal contact were required. Testing consisted of either the traditional fill-in-the-blank procedure or a personali.zed technique in which the tutors presented the test items directly to the students. Precision teaching was shown to generate higher rates of emission of correct responses on criterion tests than the teaching machine, which in turn exceeded the rates generated by the textbook alone. Implications of this study toward the design of inmate educational prograns are discussed, emphasizing factors such as economic feasibility, efficiency measures, and peripheral effects on the inmate culture.