Functional Analysis in Public School Settings: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Nesselrode and team read every school-based FA paper they could find. They pulled 74 studies written between 1997 and 2021.

They counted how many used the old analog style and how many tried new brief or trial-based formats. They also noted who ran the test: researchers, teachers, or both.

Most school studies still run the long analog version. Yet brief and trial-based formats are showing up more each year.

Teachers now help give the test in about one-third of the new studies. That number keeps climbing.

Ferrier et al. (2025) says FA use is dropping across the whole field. Nesselrode shows the opposite in schools: brief formats are rising. The gap makes sense. Schools need fast tools, so they adopt the short ones while other settings skip FA entirely.

Sellers et al. (2019) proved you can train adult-care staff to run trial-based FAs with remote coaching. Nesselrode’s tally shows the same brief model moving into schools, giving you two settings where it works.

Contreras et al. (2023) found plain descriptive assessments match FA results only half the time. That warning still holds. Even in schools, a quick ABC checklist is no swap for a real FA, brief or not.

You no longer need a free afternoon and a quiet clinic room. A five-minute trial-based FA, run by the teacher during regular math, can give you a clear answer. Start there when time, space, or staff are tight.