The effects of in-service training alone and in-service training with feedback on data collection accuracy for direct-care staff working with individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Three residential staff who support adults with intellectual disabilities took part.

Each worker first got a one-hour in-service lesson on how to record problem behavior.

Then a supervisor watched them collect data and gave two minutes of spoken feedback.

The researchers tracked how many data points each staff member scored correctly.

Before feedback, staff scored only 42 % of data points correctly.

After two or three feedback rounds, accuracy jumped to 85 %.

The gains lasted when staff worked with new clients and at different times of day.

Moss et al. (2009) looked at 55 earlier studies and already said, "Pair class time with on-the-job coaching." Yaw et al. (2014) now shows that recipe works for data collection in real homes.

Blackman et al. (2022) seemed to disagree. They saw that some trainees got better just by watching others. But most still needed direct feedback to reach mastery. The two papers agree: feedback is the key ingredient, not a nice extra.

Morante et al. (2024) used video feedback to fix running form. Both studies used the same multiple-baseline design and got big, fast gains. The sport study extends the idea that brief, visual feedback works across very different skills.

Accurate data drive every treatment decision we make. This paper gives you a cheap, five-minute tool to double staff accuracy: watch, praise what went right, correct what did not, and walk away. No extra apps, no overtime. Try it in your next supervision visit.