Comparing interteaching and discussion forums in an asynchronous online classroom: A replication.
Interteaching in asynchronous online ABA classes lifts quiz scores 20+ percentage points over discussion forums.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The authors ran an online graduate ABA class. Half the lessons used interteaching. The other half used regular discussion boards.
Students took quizzes after each format. The team compared the scores to see which method taught more.
What they found
Quiz scores jumped to 93 percent with interteaching. The same students scored only 72 percent after forum weeks.
Project grades stayed the same, but the quick checks of learning clearly favored interteaching.
How this fits with other research
Halbur et al. (2024) and degli Espinosa et al. (2021) also used alternating-treatments designs. They compared tiny teaching tweaks, like stimulus overlap or autoclitic frames. Aguirre Mtanous et al. (2026) shows the same design can judge whole course formats too.
Guinness et al. (2022) found distance programs graduate more BCBAs yet have lower pass rates. That sounds like bad news for online classes. Aguirre Mtanous et al. (2026) offers a fix: swap forums for interteaching and online students can still score high.
Liu et al. (2025) and Joseph et al. (2021) proved remote coaching works for kids and parents. Aguirre Mtanous et al. (2026) adds that remote methods also work for the graduate students themselves.
Why it matters
If you teach CEUs, supervise coursework, or run a practicum seminar, replace one weekly forum with interteaching. Pair students, give prep sheets, let them debate, then post a short recap. You should see quiz scores rise without extra grading time.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study replicated Shaw et al. (2024) by comparing quiz and assignment scores in interteaching and discussion forum conditions using an alternating-treatments design. Five graduate students in an asynchronous course participated. Variations from Shaw et al. included (a) the inclusion or revision of interteaching components, (b) alternative measures of generality, and (c) social validity data. Participants scored higher on quizzes in the interteaching condition (M = 93%) than in the discussion forum condition (M = 72%). Mean quiz scores were analyzed using a paired-sample t test, which indicated statistically significant differences between the two conditions, t(24) = 5.80, p < .0001 (two-tailed), with a substantial effect size of partial η2 = 0.58. Interteaching did not have a significant effect on project scores. Most participants (80%) favored interteaching. The discussion identifies multiple treatment interference as a potential limitation and explores the implications of the results for graduate coursework in applied behavior analysis.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2026 · doi:10.1002/jaba.70060