Download AP Psychology Rat 101 Project

AP Psychology Rat 101 Project
TSW train a rat, using methods of Operant Conditioning, to complete a maze.
Procedure:
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The student will, over a 4-6 week time span, socialize the rat, familiarize themselves with the rat’s
preferences to various handling techniques, foods, personality quirks, etc.
Once the rat has become accustomed to the student handlers, the students will begin to slowly
introduce the rats into the student built mazes.
(instructions on maze construction provided on the following link:
http://www.ratbehavior.org/RatsAndMazes.htm#ClassicMaze)
As the rats become more and more proficient on the mazes, the students will adjust the mazes,
creating more challenges for their rats to perform.
Throughout the entire project, the students are to maintain a detailed observation log, detailing the
rat’s behavior, choices, preferences and decision making skills.
When the maze project is complete:
The students will need to draw various conclusions concerning their rats when the maze project is
complete.
They will need to identify the following:
 What methods of Operant Conditioning did they use? Negative reinforcement, positive
reinforcement, punishment, shaping …
 Which of the above worked most successfully? Least successfully?
 How many attempts did they use of each before they determined what worked well with their
particular rat?
 What influenced their rat BESIDES the “bribe” they placed in the maze? In other words, were
there any outside factors that interfered with the rat’s behavior on any particular day?
 If you could change anything about this experiment, what would you change?
Log Should Include:
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Daily activity with rat and rat behavior
Diagrams, sketches of rat mazes used
Statistics in the form of charts, graphs, etc. of the success/failure of rat as they moved through the
maze
Thoughts and feelings as the group worked their way through the project
Final Report:
Draw your conclusions: you have created your hypothesis when you began this experiment. You have run
the experiment, collected the data (and had fun while doing so, creating bonds with your rats that were, in
some cases unexpected I think…). What conclusions are you able to draw about the effectiveness of
Operant Conditioning? How well did it work with your rats and how may you relate this to human beings?
Last thought:
What recommendations do you have for this project for next year? Do you think that it added to the overall
learning environment of the class or was it just a fun activity to play with the rat? In others words….to do
or not to do next year….that is the question?