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1. Regardless of how many subjects are used in an experiment, what is the main goal/function of an experiment?
- Acquire knowledge through methodological
- practices (e.g., control conditions/groups) to persuade others and ourselves
- that certain variables are responsible for observed changes and not others
- (i.e., draw valid inferences from findings).
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Skinner’s research goal was to discover what?
1. Skinner’s research goal was to discover what?
To discover lawful behavioral processes of the individual organism.
- To discover lawful behavioral processes
- of the individual organism.
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1. What were the distinct characteristics of
Skinner’s approach to single-case research (SCR) design?
- 1. Interested in studying the frequency of
- performance: provided a continuous measure of performance, orderly data,
- immediate changes, and can be automatically recorded.
- 2. One or a few subjects used in a given
- experiment: effects clearly shown in bx, lawful processes discoverable that
- might be hidden in group design.
- 3. Lawfulness of and clarity of data from
- continuous measurement produces effect on performance that can be seen directly
- in conditions of experiment.
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How is applied behavior analysis defined?
- An area of research that focused on
- socially and clinically important behaviors.
-
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Briefly, what is wrong with using
between-subject (or group) designs to investigate clinical or therapeutic
interventions?
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What are the pivotal criteria in the selection of behavior (the three
Ds)?
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What are the two most important considerations when intervening with
such behavior?
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What does social validation mean?
- The degree to which interventions take into account the
- concerns of society and the consumers of intervention (e.g., relevant to
- everyday life, acceptable by community and consumer, important to everyday
- life?).
-
Distinguish between the two social validation
methods.
- Social Comparison: identifying peer group
- for comparison who are similar to the client in subject and demographic
- variables but differ in performance of target behavior or characteristic.
- Following normative data, intervention goals are based upon differences between
- client and adequately behaving group members.
- Subjective
- Evaluation: Soliciting the opinions of others who by expertise, consensus, or
- familiarity with the client to evaluate or judge the behaviors or
- characteristics in need of treatment.
-
Now briefly describe how you might consider (or use) each of these methods in deciding whether to teach a young child with
autism to imitate vocal speech sounds.
- Social comparison method could be used to
- determine if sound is typically articulated correctly for same aged peer.
- Subjective evaluation of IEP team could be used to determine if vocal verbal
- behavior is likely to be primary method of communication or if another modality
- would yield faster and/or more functional results.
-
What are the three criteria of a good behavioral definition?
1. Objectivity: observable characteristics of the bx or related environmental variables
- 2. Clarity: unambiguous to degree someone unfamiliar with behavior could read repeat and paraphrase
- 3. Completeness: boundary conditions (included and
- excluded conditions) delineated so responses can be measured accurately
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During experimentation, how is the
influence of the independent variable measured?
-
What is internal validity?
- To what extent an intervention accounts
- for results, changes, or differences among conditions.
-
What is external validity?
- To what extent the results can be
- generalized or extended to other people, settings, times, measures or outcomes,
- and characteristics.
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What is construct validity?
Given internal validity, the specific intervention aspect interpreted as the mechanism, process or causal agent.
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Harris &
Ciminero (1978)
In general, what did results of this study
indicate?
- Witnessing consequences can
- influence behavioral recording (half of participants scored higher when
- consequences delivered).
-
Harris & Ciminero (1978)
According to the authors, how can observer
reactivity be minimized?
1. Cautioning observers to attend only to the behavior under study, disregarding cues
2. Incorporate training in correctly discriminating target bx occurrence in presence of consequences
3. Design experiment such that observers are not exposed to extraneous cues
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Harris & Ciminero (1978)
3. How might the authors’ last suggestion be actualized? Can you think of any other ways to minimize observer reactivity?
Video tape responses but not delivery of reinforcement (sr+ delivery silent e.g., token economy). Expose observers to literature about reactivity, train individual to respond his or herself, test incorrect reinforcement and correct reinforcement delivery on data collection accuracy
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Mudford & Beale (1990)
1. Under what condition(s) would sample-session records be more likely to differ from whole-session records?
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