Using Stimulus Equivalence-Based Instruction to Teach Graduate Students in Applied Behavior Analysis to Interpret Operant Functions of Behavior

Using equivalence‐based instruction to teach the visual analysis of graphs

“…All participants who completed the study learned the directly trained baseline discriminations, derived relational responding immediately emerged for three out of four participants, and all participants passed the tests for the emergence of symmetrical relations (BA, CB), and transitivity and equivalence relations (AC, CA) by the end of training and testing. These results replicate and extend recent studies (Albright et al, ; Albright et al, ; Fienup & Critchfield, ; Walker & Rehfeldt, ) where the current study better controlled for testing effects when compared to previous studies, and with novel complex stimuli that are socially relevant to behavior analysts.…”

“…In addition, three out of four participants required less than 30 min of training to demonstrate this ability, which is considerably less time than is usually required to teach this skill using more traditional methods. The results of the satisfaction survey add to previously published literature that showed that participants are generally receptive to this type of instruction and prefer it to other types of instruction (Albright et al, ; Albright et al, ). The results of the satisfaction survey for this study confirmed that participants had very little confidence in their ability to visually analyze graphs prior to the training and felt fairly confident in their skills after training.…”

“…Experimental sessions were conducted in a small student lounge or a conference room with desktop or laptop computers. For all sessions, we used the same custom web‐based software that Albright et al () developed specifically for use in EBI research to design the EBI system and to deliver and control the MTS training and testing sessions (the software is not commercially available). The developers of the EBI training software designed the system to automatically present visual–visual MTS training and testing trials and conditions to the participant via a web browser based on the mastery criteria and in the order that was programmed by the researcher.…”

“…The purpose of the current study was to systematically replicate and extend studies on EBI (e.g., Albright et al, ; Walker & Rehfeldt, ) with an eminently applied skill for behavior analysts. In recent studies, EBI has been shown to be effective in teaching relevant academic skills to college students and the current study further extends this line of research.…”

“…Two studies that used EBI to teach academic skills were recently published (Albright, Reeve, Reeve, & Kisamore, ; Albright, Schnell, Reeve, & Sidener, ). In both studies, the investigators used EBI to teach complex skills such as the concepts of statistical variability and the interpretation of the results of functional analysis graphs to college students.…”