Designing courseware: Prompts from behavioral instruction.
Use N’s prompt list to build computer lessons that teach staff complex ABA skills, not just facts.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Chase (1985) wrote a how-to guide for building computer lessons.
The paper lists behavioral prompts you can code into courseware.
It targets complex concepts, not just drill-and-practice facts.
What they found
The guide shows you which prompts to keep, drop, or add.
Follow the steps and your program shapes thinking, not just rote answers.
How this fits with other research
Bamise et al. (2026) later used the same prompt logic.
They built self-paced modules that taught Nigerian staff to run pairwise FAs.
All six learners hit high fidelity, proving the 1985 plan works in the field.
Wolfe et al. (2015) also tested a short computer module.
They found even a 20-minute lesson beats no training for graph analysis.
Together the three papers show: brief, prompt-rich courseware teaches both procedures and visual skills.
Finney et al. (1995) scaled the idea further.
They wrapped an entire behavior-analysis program inside a point-system engine.
Where Chase (1985) focused on one lesson, W et al. built a whole university track.
Why it matters
You can steal the prompt checklist today.
Drop it into any authoring tool—Articulate, Captivate, even PowerPoint with macros.
Your next online training will teach staff to think like behavior analysts, not just click answers.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Behavior analysis has been at the forefront of instructional design for many years. However, this leadership position is rapidly eroding as teachers, trainers and other educators insist that behavioral instruction is good only for meeting simplistic educational goals. I argue that in order for behavior analysis to continue to influence the field of instructional design, behavior analysts need to help people develop instructional programs that use advanced interactive computer systems and that are based on all the components of behavioral instruction. Therefore, this paper suggests the following strategy. First, it teaches people to select authoring systems that will enable them to design interactive computer programs. Second, in order to improve current authoring systems it provides a set of prompts that integrate the features of behavioral instruction. I claim that the integration of these prompts with an advanced authoring system will facilitate the development of complex, conceptual learning programs and minimize current criticisms of behavioral instruction.
The Behavior analyst, 1985 · doi:10.1007/BF03391913