Teaching individuals to conduct preference assessment using computer-aided personalized system of instruction

• Grant number: 12/01018-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2012
• End date: December 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Antonio Celso de Noronha Goyos
• Grantee: Mateus Gonçalves Nogueira dos Santos
• Supervisor: C.T. Yu
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Manitoba, Canada
• Associated to the scholarship: 10/19828-0 - Effects of contextual control over reorganized stimulus equivalence classes, BP.IC

Abstract

Recent research has shown that a self-instructional manual is an effective and efficient method for teaching university students how to conduct preference assessment for persons with developmental disabilities. I propose to evaluate the effectiveness of delivering the self-instructional manual online through computer-aided personalized system of instruction (CAPSI) for university students (Experiment 1) and for staff and/or parents (Experiment 2). The intervention will be evaluated in each experiment using a modified multiple-baseline across participants design. During baseline, participants will receive a 2-page written description of the assessment procedure extracted from published studies. During intervention, participants will receive the self-instructional manual delivered using CAPSI. Following each phase, participants will be asked to: (a) conduct a direct preference assessment with a confederate playing the role of a person with developmental disabilities; (b) if they met mastery criterion with the confederate, conduct a generalization assessment with a client with developmental disabilities; and (c) complete a brief survey to evaluate the importance of the goal of the intervention, the acceptability of the teaching method, and the perceived effectiveness of the study materials. All participants will also conduct an assessment one week following the manual to measure retention. Primary dependent measures will include performance accuracy (percent correct) during each direct preference assessment and the amount of time needed to complete the study materials. For both experiments, I expect that no participant will meet mastery criterion following baseline, and all participants will meet criterion after the CAPSI intervention. This study will extend previous CAPSI research by presenting the study materials online, incorporating video demonstration of the procedures, fully automating computer scoring and feedback for participants, and by teaching a healthcare procedure. (AU)