Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Johnson-Gros, Kristin

Committee Member

Doggett, Anthony R.

Committee Member

Henington, Carlen

Committee Member

Wells, Debbie

Committee Member

Devlin, Sandy

Date of Degree

12-11-2009

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Educational Psychology

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology

Abstract

Functional behavior assessment refers to the broad range of behavioral assessment methods used to identify or clarify the purpose or maintaining contingencies of problem behavior in order to design and implement function-based interventions designed to reduce the occurrence of the problem behavior and teach appropriate replacement skills. FBAs are required in the educational setting for students whose problem behavior is displayed to such a significant level that their learning or the learning of their peers is impacted. As such, previous researchers have conducted trainings on FBA for school-based personnel using a wide variety of methods. Unfortunately, the findings of these studies have yielded mixed results suggesting the need for further inquiry in this line of research. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate whether FBA training would produce significant changes in participants’ knowledge and acceptability of FBA measures and procedures. In addition, the current study evaluated if a significant relationship existed between the FBA knowledge and acceptability measures. The study also evaluated if the use of vignettes and the provision of feedback following training impacted participants’ accuracy and acceptability on an FBA informant method. Results revealed a statistically significant change in all variables on the second administration of the measures of knowledge or acceptability. In addition, results from the study revealed a significant relationship between the second administration of knowledge and the second administration of FBA Evaluation Scales. Conversely, no significant relationship was found between the first administration of knowledge and the first administration of acceptability measures. Overall, the study demonstrated that the specific strategies utilized in the FBA training series were effective in increasing FBA knowledge and acceptability. As such, the current study contributes to the FBA literature by providing further evaluation of training methods designed to increase participant knowledge and acceptability of FBA policies and procedures. Limitations and implications for practice and research are discussed.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/17059

Comments

fair-tr||performance feedback||vignettes||evaluation scale

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