A Constructional Approach to the Use of Behavior Change Projects in Undergraduate Behavior Analysis Courses
Talk through student behavior-change logs in real time to grow clean contingency talk.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The authors swapped the way they coach undergrad behavior-change projects.
Half the class got live, in-class comments on their weekly logs. The other half read the same feedback online.
Everyone still wrote three-level logs: what happened, what they changed, and why it worked.
What they found
Students who heard feedback in class wrote more correct three-term contingencies later.
Online readers kept using mentalistic words like “I felt motivated.”
How this fits with other research
de Merlier et al. (2024) later used the same project format but added a social-media lock. Their tweak also helped students study more, showing the log idea travels.
Nava et al. (2019) tried peer-made videos instead of logs. Kids loved the clips yet quiz scores stayed flat. Together the two studies say: active tasks beat passive content, but live feedback is the secret sauce.
Michael (1995) gave teachers an eight-box chart to sort any behavior effect. Armshaw’s in-class coaching could plug right into that chart, giving students a clear place to file each contingency they spot.
Why it matters
If you teach RBT coursework or supervise university practica, read the logs out loud and fix them on the spot. Five minutes of live talk turns vague diary entries into sharp behavioral statements. That small shift now, means sharper future BCBAs.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
One of the key challenges facing instructors of undergraduate introduction to behavior analysis courses is helping students learn to identify the environmental variables that control behavior. Goldiamond frequently employed exploratory and targeted logs to help his clients understand the environmental controlling variables that supported their behavior. We describe a preliminary analysis of the use of adaptations of Goldiamond’s exploratory logs in the context of a behavior change project incorporated in several undergraduate introductory behavior analysis courses across three semesters. Three “levels” of exploratory logs were created in which students were asked to record an increasing number of the components of the three-term contingency. Students were also asked to answer the question, “why did this behavior occur” for each behavior reported. In the first semester, students received feedback on their exploratory logs through an online course management system and in the subsequent two semesters students received feedback on their exploratory logs during class periods. Each level of the students’ exploratory logs was scored according to the type of explanation (e.g., explanatory fiction, behavioral) students provided for the behavior. The results show that the combination of the behavior change project and in-class feedback promoted more behavioral explanations for the behaviors recorded than the combination of the behavior change project and feedback provided through the online, course management system.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s40617-021-00608-1