Week 2 Capstone Write Up

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National University *

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670

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Statistics

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Feb 20, 2024

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docx

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Uploaded by PresidentDove3993

ABA 670 CAPSTONE PROJECT 1 Research Methods Participant At the time of this study, the participant is completing master's level coursework as a graduate student attending the Sanford School of Education at National University. The participant is currently a Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) at Alternative Behavior Strategies (ABS Kids) working towards earning a master's degree in applied behavior analysis (ABA). Additionally, the participant is gaining supervision experience under the direction of a licensed, board-certified behavior analyst (BCBA) through ABS Kids in preparation to fulfill the role of BCBA once all Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) eligibility requirements have been met. Independent and Dependent Variables Independent Variables The student was instructed to implement a precision teaching instructional method by using SAFMEDS study procedures and chart her progress on an SCC software program across 9 graduate courses to evaluate progress towards fluency in course content based on the standards set forth by the 5 th edition of the BCBA Task List. In addition to the methods mentioned above, the student also used environmental arrangement strategies and positive reinforcement contingencies to promote increased retention and fluency of course content and to assist in preparation for the required BCBA exam, which is to be completed after eligibility requirements are met and a complete application has been submitted and approved by the BACB. Dependent Variables

ABA 670 CAPSTONE PROJECT 2 The student utilized a combination of the interventions mentioned in the previous subsection to evaluate their effects on the accel and decel scores obtained when running weekly timings with 3 acquisition decks for each course across 9 total courses. In addition, the student evaluated her maintenance of terms from previously mastered acquisition decks through the creation of a fluency deck assembled from a cumulative selection of cards from each deck after a new acquisition deck is added according to the deck schedule provided by National University. This dependent variable is consistent across the first 8 courses of the graduate program but is modified in ABA 636 to evaluate the student’s progress towards improvement in 3 specific target areas based on the results of a mock BCBA exam taken in the first week of the course, and assessed in the final week of the course after a second mock exam is taken. The results of these mock exams will be discussed in more detail in this paper's Mock Exam section. Materials At the beginning of each course, the student accessed the SAFMEDS acquisition decks via the Central Reach Institute website by navigating to the corresponding course and locating the file containing the 3 acquisition decks for courses ABA 620 to ABA 634. The student printed, cut, and sorted the acquisition decks following the detailed instructions provided by Central Reach Institute. In course ABA 636, the student created her 3 target decks by handwriting the terms from the courses corresponding to the 3 target areas on colored flashcards. These flashcards were created using a combination of the decks created by Central Reach Institute and additional examples based on information from the Cooper, Heron, and Heward (2020) textbook.

ABA 670 CAPSTONE PROJECT 3 Data was entered into a SCC corresponding to the acquisition and fluency decks for each course via the Central Reach PrecisionX website on a weekly basis, at minimum. Trial data was also stored on a document in the Notes application on the student’s iPhone Xs where the student recorded the date, time, accel and decel scores, decks run each week, and any confounding variables that affected the student’s progress. The student created this document to conveniently view and record her scores when access to a computer was not currently available, and to keep a detailed record of SAFMEDS data across all 9 courses. Furthermore, this document allowed the student to maintain accuracy when entering data into PrecisionX at a later date or time, typically when running timings between direct care sessions, when PrecisionX software was not available for immediate use. The student used the Timer app on her iPhone or Apple Watch when running each 30-second timing to serve as a visual and audible stimulus indicating the time remaining to ensure the accuracy of the data entered on PrecisionX. Procedures Initial In the first course of the program, ABA 620, the student was instructed to hold the entire deck, shuffle the cards, start a 30-second timer, “See” the front of the card and “Say” the information on the back of the card, turn the card over and check to determine whether the student responded correctly, sort the deck into piles corresponding to correct and incorrect responses, count the number of responses per pile after the timer expires, and chart the best timing of the day on PrecisionX. The student ran 5 acquisition timings per day, 5 times per week. The student was also instructed to follow the same procedures for the fluency deck, running only 3 fluency timings per day, 3 times per week. This procedure was followed for courses ABA 620 to 624,

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ABA 670 CAPSTONE PROJECT 4 except the first 2 weeks of ABA 620. The student entered the accel and decel data for her best timing of the day into PrecisionX for each deck, as well as the date and time of each timing. Confounding variables, modifications to study methods, or deck changes were also recorded in PrecisionX as phase change lines quickly summarizing the new intervention condition along with the date and time of the phase change. For courses ABA 622 to 634, the deck schedule was as follows: in weeks 1 and 2, deck 1 was in acquisition, and the fluency deck consisted of the definition cards (indicated with a “D” on the back of the card) from previous courses; in weeks 3 to 5, deck 2 was in acquisition, and the fluency deck consisted of the “D” cards from previous courses combined with the “D” cards from deck 1 of the current course; and in weeks 6 to 8, deck 3 was in acquisition, and the fluency deck consisted of the “D” cards from previous cards combined with the “D” cards from decks 1 and 2 of the current course. After the last timing is run in week 8, the “D” cards from deck 3 are added to the fluency deck in preparation for week 1 of the next course, where the deck schedule restarts. This procedure slightly differs in ABA 620, where the fluency deck was not created until week 3 of the course, and thus no fluency data was recorded into PrecisionX. The remaining timings of weeks 3 to 8 of ABA 620 followed the normal deck schedule. In ABA 636, the deck schedule was as follows: in week 1, only the fluency deck (consisting of the “D” cards accumulated from courses 620 to 634) was run; in week 2, the same fluency deck from week 1 was run along with the acquisition deck, or target deck 1, which consisted of cards from the lowest scoring BCBA Task List area assessed from the mock exam results in week 1 of the course; in week 3, the fluency deck consisted of the entirety of target deck 1, and target deck 2 was in acquisition, consisting of cards from the second lowest scoring Task List area from the mock exam results; in week 4, the final week of this course, the fluency

ABA 670 CAPSTONE PROJECT 5 deck consisted of the entirety of target decks 1 and 2, and the acquisition deck consisted of cards from target deck 3, which contained cards from the third lowest scoring Task List area from the mock exam results. The student either ran her timings in her car between direct care sessions, or in her bedroom in the evening after completing work for the day. Before running 30-second timings, the student spent approximately 15 to 30 minutes reviewing the deck without the timer. The student reviewed the entire deck, sorting it into 2 piles as the cards were reviewed. One pile of cards consisted of cards where the student could recall the correct response aloud quickly, and the other pile was composed of cards where the student either said the incorrect term, could not say a term at all, or where the latency between viewing the card and recalling the correct term aloud was greater than 5 seconds. The student tracked her latency during review using the stopwatch function on her iPhone or Apple Watch. After running through the entire deck in this manner, the student reviewed the second pile of cards using errorless learning, silently reading the information on the front of the card, and immediately flipping the card over and saying the correct answer aloud. After reviewing the second pile of cards using errorless learning, the student ran through the second pile seeking independent responses, again separating the cards into two piles using the same review methods mentioned previously. Once the student could run through the entire second pile of cards without any difficulty or incorrect responses, the student combined both piles of cards and repeated this procedure until the entire deck could be run without any errors or difficulty. Once the student had completed her review of the deck, she ran her timings using a 30-second timer on either her iPhone Xs or Apple Watch, recording the results from her best timing of the day in PrecisionX or in her Notes app, to be added to PrecisionX as soon as the student had access to a computer.

ABA 670 CAPSTONE PROJECT 6 At the end of each week of the course, the student completed a weekly SAFMEDS write- up where she analyzed her acquisition and fluency data for the week, discussed her progress towards meeting the AIM goal (accel of 14 in 30 seconds), and discussed her study methods and any necessary adjustments required to be made to these methods in the following week to assist the student in reaching the AIM goal. Modifications In July of 2022, when the student began course ABA 626, National University released updated requirements for the SAFMEDS procedures and weekly write-ups. The updated procedures required students to plot 10 data points (5 acquisition timings and 5 fluency timings) total per week instead of the previously required 8 data points (5 acquisition timings and 3 fluency timings), meaning that students were now required to run 3 fluency timings per day, 5 days per week. Additionally, National University introduced a required baseline timing, which would occur during the first day with each new acquisition deck, totaling 3 baseline timings for each course. For the student’s baseline timing, the student did not shuffle the deck or review the cards beforehand, instead running one trial baseline timing and recording the results from this timing in PrecisionX. Baseline timings were run in weeks 1, 3, and 6 of each course unless the student was unable to meet the AIM goal by the end of their scheduled time with the acquisition deck. If the student was unable to meet the AIM goal, they were instructed to continue running the same acquisition deck until the AIM is met before transitioning to the new acquisition deck. Students were provided detailed information on the condition lines that should be used in PrecisionX to differentiate between deck and course changes, intervention changes, or confounding variables throughout the course. The requirements for the weekly SAFMEDS write-ups were also updated, with a newly required detailed visual analysis of all 4 data paths (acquisition accel, acquisition

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ABA 670 CAPSTONE PROJECT 7 decel, fluency accel, and fluency decel) that mentioned at least 2 visual analysis features for each data path. Students were instructed to discuss the trend, level, and variability of their data paths in their weekly write-ups, referring to resources provided by National University containing resources to assist in the visual analysis. The students were required to provide more detailed information about their study methods and any necessary adjustments to these methods, describing the antecedent and consequent events surrounding the student’s study behaviors, as well as a topographical description of the student’s study behavior itself. Students were also required to discuss strategies for reinforcing their study behaviors and create weekly SAFMEDS goal plans. In addition to the modifications to the SAFMEDS procedures provided by National University, the student often found it necessary to modify her environment to optimize her study time and ensure that the AIM goal would be reached by the end of the week. These environmental arrangements included completing timings in the car to avoid disruptions in the student’s home, running timings when the members of the student’s household were sleeping or absent from the home, and utilizing a space inside the home as an office to avoid distractors after the student’s roommate moved out, and the student had increased opportunities to study in the absence of noise or any further distractions. The student typically met or exceeded the AIM goal by her 2 nd or 3 rd timing of the week and did not find it necessary to make any additional adjustments to her study methods. Furthermore, no recommendations or feedback were provided to the student by her instructors recommending any adjustments be made to her study methods. Mock Exam

ABA 670 CAPSTONE PROJECT 8 After approximately 16 months of implementing the SAFMEDS methods detailed in the previous subsection across the first 8 courses of the master’s program in ABA, the student took a mock BCBA examination during week 1 of ABA 636 which resembled the structure and content of the BCBA examination created by Pearson VUE. A passing score on the BCBA examination is required to become a licensed BCBA, and the mock examination was completed to assess the student’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to the 9 areas of the BCBA Task List and includes the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts. The student was given 4 hours to complete the mock examination which contained 175 multiple-choice questions and was administered on the Central Reach Institute website. Exam 1 The student completed her first mock BCBA examination in week 1 of ABA 636 on May 3, 2023, and received an overall score of 71.43%, with 125 correct responses out of 175 total questions. Central Reach Institute provided the results of the mock examination immediately after the student’s completion, breaking the student’s results down into the 9 BCBA Task List areas and scoring the student’s performance in both their understanding of the concepts and the application of these concepts for each Task List area. The student was required to add the scores for the concepts and applications for each of the Task List items and divide this sum by 2 to receive an average score of her performance in all 9 Task List areas. After calculating the average scores for each Task List area, the student identified her 3 strongest and 3 weakest Task List areas according to her performance on the mock examination. The student’s 3 strongest areas were Personnel Supervision and Management (Task List I – 96% average), Philosophical Underpinnings (Task List A – 90% average), and Experimental Design (Task List D – 78% average). Conversely, the student’s 3 weakest areas were Behavior-Change Procedures (Task

ABA 670 CAPSTONE PROJECT 9 List G – 52% average), Selecting and Implementing Interventions (Task List H – 59.5% average), and Measurement, Data Display, and Interpretation (Task List C – 65.5% average). Study Methods After completing the mock BCBA examination and reviewing the analysis of her examination scores provided by Central Reach Institute, the student was instructed to create 3 target decks based on her 3 weakest Task List areas by referencing the non-definition cards from the SAFMEDS acquisition decks corresponding to the course focusing on the specific Task List item. The student created her own target decks by combining the non-definition cards from the SAFMEDS decks on Central Reach Institute as well as examples and definitions from chapters of the Cooper, Heron, and Heward (2020) textbook used throughout her coursework. Once these target decks were created, the student ran timings with these decks according to the deck schedule provided by National University for ABA 636. The student recorded the data for these timings using PrecisionX, and supplemented her review of these target decks with YouTube videos, ABA blog posts, and courses on Central Reach Institute covering the specific Task List items identified as the student’s weak areas. The student also viewed recordings of BCBA study groups hosted by Central Reach Institute staff and took detailed notes on the information covered in these study groups to assist in her understanding of the material from the 3 target areas. Due to the expedited nature of this course in comparison to the previous 8 courses (4-week schedule), the student was only able to view 3 courses covering the Task List items from the 3 target areas. Exam 2 In the 4 th and final week of ABA 636, the student took another mock BCBA examination to determine whether she had shown an improvement in the 3 target areas identified as weaknesses

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ABA 670 CAPSTONE PROJECT 10 in the first mock examination attempt in week 1 of the course. In target area 1, Behavior-Change Procedures (Task List G), the student demonstrated a vast improvement compared to her score in her first mock examination attempt, receiving a 69% average (17% increase from week 1). The student also demonstrated an improvement in target area 3, Measurement, Data Display, and Interpretation (Task List C), scoring a 72% average (6.5% increase from week 1). For target area 2, Selecting and Implementing Interventions (Task List H), the student scored a 58% average, demonstrating a 1.5% decrease from her score in week 1. The study methods used throughout the 4-week course appear to have been effective on the student’s progress in 2 of the 3 target areas, but it appears that some adjustments to the student’s study methods could have assisted the student in improving in target area 2. The student performed worse overall on her 2 nd mock examination attempt in week 4, receiving a 67% total score, with 117 correct responses out of 175 total questions (8-point and 4.43% decrease). Recommendations for future study will be discussed in the next section of this paper, detailing the researcher’s conclusions and findings.