COMPARISON OF A STIMULUS EQUIVALENCE PROTOCOL AND TRADITIONAL LECTURE FOR TEACHING SINGLE-SUBJECT DESIGNS

• Published in: Journal of applied behavior analysis Vol. 44; no. 4; pp. 819 - 833
• Main Authors: Lovett, Sadie, Rehfeldt, Ruth Anne, Garcia, Yors, Dunning, Johnna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.12.2011; Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior; The Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
• Subjects: Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Brain; Brain research; College students; Colleges & universities; Comparative Analysis; Computer Uses in Education; Counseling Techniques; Design; Disabilities; Discrimination Learning; Education; Educational Practices; Educational psychology; Experiments; Feedback (Response); Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Generalization; Generalization (Psychology); Graphs; Humans; Lecture Method; Letters; Male; Mathematical functions; Names; Personal computers; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Questionnaires; Reading; Reading comprehension; Reading Skills; Research Design; Research Methodology; Stimuli; stimulus equivalence; Students; Surveys; tact; Teacher; Teaching - methods; Tests; Therapists; Topography; topography-based responding; Training; Undergraduate Students; Universities; Validity; verbal behavior; Visual Stimuli; Young Adult; Language; topography-based responding; college students; University environment; Verbal behavior; tact; Stimulus equivalence; Student; Comparative study; Teaching; verbal behavior; stimulus equivalence
• ISSN: 0021-8855; 1938-3703; 1938-3703
• DOI: 10.1901/jaba.2011.44-819

This study compared the effects of a computer‐based stimulus equivalence protocol to a traditional lecture format in teaching single‐subject experimental design concepts to undergraduate students. Participants were assigned to either an equivalence or a lecture group, and performance on a paper‐and‐pencil test that targeted relations among the names of experimental designs, design definitions, design graphs, and clinical vignettes was compared. Generalization of responding to novel graphs and novel clinical vignettes, as well as the emergence of a topography‐based tact response after selection‐based training, were evaluated for the equivalence group. Performance on the paper‐and‐pencil test following teaching was comparable for participants in the equivalence and lecture groups. All participants in the equivalence group showed generalization to novel graphs, and 6 participants showed generalization to novel clinical vignettes. Three of the 4 participants demonstrated the emergence of a topography‐based tact response following training on the stimulus equivalence protocol.