An Evaluation of the Emergence of Untrained Academic and Applied Skills After Instruction With Video Vignettes.
Short video vignettes can train staff to collect data on novel scenes without extra teaching.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team showed graduate students short videos of classroom scenes.
Each clip had hidden teaching errors.
Students learned to name the errors and record data.
No one told them what to watch for next time.
The test: would they spot new errors in brand-new videos?
What they found
Most students started scoring data on new clips right away.
They used the right verbal labels without extra teaching.
Skills stayed strong two weeks later.
A quick video protocol created untrained data collectors.
How this fits with other research
Shapiro et al. (2017) reviewed 24 staff-training studies.
They say the best packages mix modeling, practice, and feedback.
The new study keeps that recipe but swaps live role-play for short clips.
Iwata et al. (1990) already showed simulation beats single-case drills.
Day et al. (2021) now proves the same idea works for graduate students learning data collection.
Li et al. (2021) used similar video vignettes with teens who have intellectual disability.
Both projects got fast gains, but Huan saw limited cohesion gains while J saw full emergent responding.
The difference: adults with language histories generalize more easily than teens with ID.
Why it matters
You can flip new RBTs or practicum students into accurate data collectors in under an hour.
Pick five common error clips, run the emergent-responding protocol, then test with a fresh video.
If they score it right, you just saved hours of live practice.
Keep the clips on your tablet for refresher sets anytime.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
UNLABELLED: Applied behavior-analytic skills are derived from precise, technical, objective operational definitions and exemplars of natural phenomena. In some cases, technical behavior-analytic terminology can be challenging for students and practitioners to learn and apply given a person's individual history with the concepts. One of the conceptual areas of behavior analysis that learners tend to struggle with more than other areas is the functional account of human language or verbal behavior. We used an emergent-responding training protocol with freely available and easy-to-implement web-based learning tools to teach the terms and definitions of Skinner's taxonomy of verbal operants using video exemplars and mixed response forms to six graduate students. We also tested for the emergence of untrained applied clinical skills in the form of collecting data while watching novel real-world video exemplars. We found that the video-based training system reliably resulted in the emergence of untrained responding and generalization to novel stimuli and responses and that the skills were maintained by four out of six participants for 2 weeks. In addition, the applied skills performances of the participants were comparable to students who received traditional training in verbal behavior, slightly lower than the performances of Board Certified Behavior Analysts, and considerably lower than the performances of doctoral-level BCBAs. When compared to other published research that used emergent-responding training protocols, the current study required more training time on average but resulted in better performances during some maintenance probes. A brief conceptual analysis of our data is presented, as well as recommendations for future research. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40616-020-00140-3.
The Analysis of verbal behavior, 2021 · doi:10.1007/s40732-018-0283-2