You are giving tennis lessons to a beginning tennis player. Describe how you would teach the proper tennis swing through shaping. Specify:

Question

a. An appropriate terminal behavior
b. A reinforcer you might use
c. The specific steps you would take during shaping
d. When you would use continuous reinforcement
e. When you would use intermittent reinforcement

Answer 1

Answers to the separate parts of the question are as follows:
a. The terminal behavior is an effective tennis swing defined in some concrete, observable fashion—for example, swinging the racket in such a way that it gets the ball over the net and into the opponent's court at least 80% of the time.
b. Assuming that the student is taking tennis lessons voluntarily, an appropriate reinforcer might be praise, feedback, or some other simple stimulus that conveys a job well done. (Any justifiable reinforcer is acceptable here.)
c. Any series of steps that resemble closer and closer approximations to an effective tennis swing is acceptable. A complete response should probably have three steps at a minimum.
d. The teacher should use continuous reinforcement until the terminal behavior has been reached