Evaluation of Cost Effective Preference Assessments for Use in General Education Settings

• Main Author: Resetar, Jennifer Luella
• Other Authors: Frank Gresham
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: LSU 2006
• Subjects: Psychology
• Online Access: http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-08222006-195437/

This study investigated the effectiveness of various preference assessments when used in a general education setting. Three separate experiments were conducted to elucidate the usefulness of various forms of preference assessments with the elementary general education population. The first experiment compared the outcomes of a teacher survey, teacher ranking, child survey, and brief multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessment. A Spearman rho correlation found that the indirect assessments either did not or only weakly correlated with the preference assessments. The second experiment utilized a single subject alternating treatments design to compare the reinforcing effectiveness of items identified as the most preferred via the brief MSWO preference assessment and teacher ranking. Reinforcers were assessed using a single operant design that required the child to answer math problems. The average number of digits correctly answered did not significantly differ between the preference assessment reward condition and the teacher ranking condition for all 4 participants. Overall, the number of digits correctly answered was significantly greater in the experimental conditions than the no reward condition. Finally, the third experiment compared the outcomes of a one session, three session, and five session MSWO assessment. A Spearman rho correlation coefficient showed that the five session and three session assessments were strongly related, the one session and three session assessments were strongly correlated, and the one session assessments had a moderate to high correlation with the five session assessments. It was also found that the participants preferences changed over time.