The Importance Of A Token Economic System In Early Childhood Education

Based on the previous research and the knowledge acquired during earlier course work, this author is very involved on her action research project. It has been ten years and more, being in the Early Childhood field that has made this author choose to assess how a token economy system affects children’s intrinsic motivation in the pre-kindergarten years. As an early childhood educator, this author has seen how a token economy system has been utilized in classrooms. Research shows that the early childhood years are crucial for establishing robust intrinsic motivational orientations which can last in the upper grades. It is important to understand that educators use rewards to get an outcome, or to change a behavior. Are we supporting intrinsic motivation when giving rewards or are we probing children to learn that they need a reward in order to learn.
The action research topic was very broad and was considered to be unfocused. The question itself was focused but when conducting a research in the magnitude that this author wanted to do was considered to be in a doctorate level. This author has narrowed the problem statement to understand how a token economy system affects children’s learning of letter recognition skills. It is important to understand that the author will compare and contrast how a group of students will learn letter recognition skills using and not using a token economy system. What influence does a token economy system have in learning letter recognition skills to pre-kindergarten