Date of Award

7-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Behavioral Analysis

First Advisor

David A. Wilder

Second Advisor

Elbert Blakely

Third Advisor

Gary N. Burns

Fourth Advisor

Bryon Neff

Abstract

In Organizational Behavior Management (OBM), any intervention is judged by its immediate effects, the long-term impact on the targeted performance, and the likelihood that the organization and/or its constituents will adopt the intervention (Sigurdsson & Austin, 2006). However, maintenance and adoption of procedures is rarely measured (Redmon, 1991). A core tenant of behavior analysis is the role of environmental stimuli in maintaining behavior, but most tactics to promote durability are not examined in this fashion (e.g., Conard et al., 2016; Johnston, 1979). A logical, but under investigated, avenue is to examine the role of functional assessment in producing durable change. The current study examined the predictive ability of a common OBM functional assessment tool, the Performance Diagnostic Checklist- Human Services (PDC-HS; Carr et al., 2013; Carr et al., 2016) to influence maintenance and institutionalization of a prescribed intervention to increase learning opportunities provided to clients in session. Two multiple baseline designs across participants were utilized with six behavior technicians. One group received a PDC-HS indicated intervention, a refined process to provide accurate and readily available program stimuli. The other group received the same intervention, in addition to their supervisors receiving their own PDC-HS indicated intervention to support the behavior technician performance with performance feedback and a job aid/checklist. All behavior technicians increased their provided learning opportunities per hour following intervention in both single-case designs. A mixed repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the multi-level intervention produced statistically significant change over baseline compared to the control group. Limitations and future research are discussed.

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