Teaching undergraduates to solve equivalence problems by using cover, copy, and compare: A translational study
Cover-copy-compare with a graphic organizer teaches equivalence relations to college students in one brief session.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Frampton et al. (2025) tried a quick way to teach college students stimulus equivalence.
They used cover-copy-compare plus a simple graphic organizer.
Seven undergraduates practiced for one short session and then took equivalence tests.
What they found
Five students scored above 90% right after the first training round.
The last two hit the same mark after a quick second round.
All seven showed the new relations without extra teaching.
How this fits with other research
Busch et al. (2010) and Kaufman et al. (2010) also taught equivalence to college kids, but they needed three lessons and computers.
Frampton’s one-session, paper-and-pencil method matches their results while cutting time and tech.
Cerutti et al. (2004) warned that too-similar items slow equivalence; Frampton avoided this by using clear, unrelated shapes and labels.
Why it matters
You can run this protocol with just paper, a timer, and a pencil.
Try it when you need to teach new concept sets fast—like staff training or quick vocabulary checks.
One round takes five minutes, and the graphic organizer keeps responses organized for easy scoring.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Print a graphic organizer, pick five new concept pairs, and run one five-minute CCC cycle with your learner.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Cover, copy, and compare (CCC) is a study strategy in which students cover their notes, attempt to copy them, and then compare for accuracy. We evaluated whether CCC could be used to establish equivalence classes with undergraduate students. A video training package and experimenter feedback were used to teach participants to engage in CCC with notes in the form of a graphic organizer. During the CCC condition, participants constructed graphic organizers depicting the relations among three equivalence classes, each consisting of three familiar stimuli. After completing CCC, five of the seven participants scored over 90% on their first matching‐to‐sample posttest. We evaluated the use of the strategy with three 5‐member classes of abstract stimuli. All participants used CCC when studying the relations and scored over 90% on the first posttest, and three participants constructed graphic organizers during the posttest. The social validity data indicated that participants found the intervention highly acceptable.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2025 · doi:10.1002/jaba.70026