Chapter Summary:
Measuring behavior may not be the most exciting task that you do as a teacher, or the most dramatic, or even the most fun. It may, however, be one of the most important tasks that you do. The data that you collect in order to monitor key social and academic behaviors will help to ensure that you are taking the right steps to improve those behaviors and prevent unacceptable alternatives to those behaviors from occurring. Without data, teachers run the risk of continuing ineffective interventions, thus wasting valuable time, or discontinuing effective interventions too soon. Effective teachers make data collection and analysis a regular part of their daily routine. In this chapter, we explained the importance of monitoring behavior and how to incorporate various types of behavior measurement into your daily teaching routine.
Chapter Objectives:
Describe strategies for collecting six types of data: event, interval, time sampling, duration, latency, and permanent products.
Describe how to collect data to monitor target behaviors and replacement behaviors.
Convert the raw data when necessary.
Construct a graph to provide a visual display of the data.
Interpret the data and make intervention decisions founded on the data.
Chapter Activities:
1. Select five behaviors and write an operational definition for each one. Mime the behavior for a partner. That person will then write a definition for the behavior. Compare and discuss the two definitions.
2. Make a list of five excuses why a teacher might choose to not collect data and counter each with a professional reason as to why it is essential to collect behavioral and academic data.
3. Discuss how measuring behavior will help you to justify the program decisions that you make for your class.