Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My project is finding out how effective group punishment is. I have not been able to find out why teachers punish the entire middle school class because a couple of students are talking or not paying attention. Does anyone know why this method is used? Is there a particular psychologist that started this technique? How does it accomplish its goal of managing a classroom? Group punishment is used during pe too with running being the usual punishment. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Our project deadline has been moved up to Friday and I still have not found any resources saying how this is an effective approach or where it originated.
Thank you for any information you can offer.

Well, you raise a question about something many of us have experienced in our lives! It's a good mark of a scientist to take an everyday phenomenon and wonder where a convention comes from and whether it might be improved.

If you are looking for background information about the philosophy or science of punishment, I found this encyclopedia article online to be very useful: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/punishment/

You can also Google "Classroom group punishment" to find a wide variety of references.

Your profile indicates that you are analyzing your data. Can you tell us more about your scientific question/hypothesis and experiment? This might allow someone on this forum to provide assistance that pertains to your project.

Bill