The Best and Worst Things Staff Report About Behavioral Training Workshops: a Large-Scale Evaluation

Abstract

A variable affecting the success of staff training programs conducted by behavior analysts is trainee acceptance of the training. This study constituted a large-scale evaluation of staff acceptance of behavioral training workshops. Over a 10-year period, 646 human service staff who participated in 132 workshops were questioned regarding the best and worst thing about the workshops. The most common staff comments concerning the best thing pertained to the training content, followed closely by trainer style and then trainee activities. There were far fewer comments regarding the worst thing, with most involving aspects of the physical environment in which training occurred. Implications of the results for practitioners are offered in terms of conducting workshop training in accordance with trainees' reported preferences. Emphasis is placed on ensuring training content is specific in nature as well as new and relevant for the trainees' work situation, providing frequent demonstrations and examples, and structuring repeated opportunities for active trainee responding.

Scaling Up Behavioral Skills Training: Effectiveness of Large-Scale and Multiskill Trainings

“…The remaining four participants (22%) were also similar to P14, except that they failed to maintain their use of two or Case Demonstration 2: Using Participant Feedback to Refine BST Method One way to evaluate whether a large-scale training was successful is, of course, to assess whether each of the trainees acquired the targeted skills. An additional variable of importance, however, relates to the trainees' assessment of the acceptability of the training methods (Reid et al, 2018). Participants' acceptability of training procedures is thought to be related to the training procedures' overall effectiveness.…”

“…Recent research also suggests that trainees rate BST as an acceptable training procedure (e.g., Fetherston & Sturmey, 2014;Hassan et al, 2018), with several of the individual components preferred by trainees. Specifically, trainees prefer the use of modeling or demonstrations, practice opportunities, and performance feedback (Reid, Green, Parsons, & Rotholz, 2018;Strohmeier, Mule, & Luiselli, 2014).…”

Using computer‐based instruction to teach implementation of behavioral skills training

“…Although BST is both an effective and acceptable intervention to train staff (e.g., Reid et al, 2019), future research should examine the use of written materials alone, such as the BST manual. We opted to present the BST manual during and following CBI to mimic how training would typically be conducted in the natural environment.…”

“…Not only is BST effective, but it also appears to be an acceptable training procedure. Reid et al (2019) conducted a large‐scale evaluation to identify how staff participating in behavioral training workshops rate various aspects of those workshops. Attendees rated the parts of the workshop resembling BST (i.e., instructions, instructor modeling, peer role‐plays, positive and corrective feedback) as the best components of the workshop.…”