Preintervention analysis and improvement of customer greeting in a restaurant

We examined customer greeting by employees at one location of a sandwich restaurant chain. First, a preintervention analysis was conducted to determine the conditions under which greeting a customer within 3 s of his or her entry into the restaurant did and did not occur. Results suggested that an appropriate customer greeting was most likely to occur when a door chime was used to indicate that a customer had entered the store and when the store manager was present behind the service counter. Next, a performance improvement intervention, which consisted of the combination of the use of a door chime and manager presence, was evaluated. Results showed that during baseline, a mean of 6% of customers were greeted; during intervention a mean of 63% of customers were greeted. The addition of manager-delivered verbal and graphic group feedback resulted in 100% of customers being greeted across two consecutive sessions.     

The Effects of Early English Learning on Auditory Perception of English Minimal Pairs by Taiwan University Students

Auditory perception of English minimal pairs was tested with or without noise background. Each subject was interviewed after the test to collect information regarding their early experience on learning English as a foreign language. This study was designed to examine the differential effects of learning English at three age-starting points and two learning durations. This study hopes to determine how childhood experience of English learning (which is not mandatory in public elementary schools) has affected the auditory competence of university students in distinguishing English minimal pairs. Results showed that age effects were salient only under condition of noise background. Without the interference of background noise, most subjects performed well enough to obliterate any potential differences.     

Evaluating a more cost-efficient alternative to providing in-home feedback to parents: the use of spousal feedback.

We evaluated the contribution of spousal feedback to a parent education curriculum designed for parents of children with autism. A modified multiple baseline design across 3 husband-and-wife dyads was used to examine the effects of teaching parents to give each other feedback on their teaching performance. For 5 of 6 participants, improvement in teaching performance occurred following didactic presentations. However, additional improvement was observed for 5 participants when the spousal feedback component was implemented.     

USING NUMBER LINE PROCEDURES AND PEER TUTORING TO IMPROVE THE MATHEMATICS COMPUTATION OF LOW-PERFORMING FIRST GRADERS

Recommendations for mathematics instruction frequently include the use of manipulatives as a critical component. There are few experimental analyses of teaching strategies involving the use of manipulatives (e.g., the number line). This investigation used a multiple baseline design across three groups of students to examine the effectiveness of an experimental procedure for improving low-performing children's skills in solving missing addend arithmetic problems using the number line. To address concerns about inadequate time for instruction and insufficient practice in most mathematics instruction, trained peer tutors implemented the procedure. The results suggest that student performance improved when trained tutors taught the students number line procedures and gave them feedback on accuracy. Further, social validation data indicate that the students, their tutors, and their classroom teachers liked the procedures.     

THE EFFECTS OF FEEDBACK ON BLOOD PRESSURE DISCRIMINATION

Discrimination of blood pressure in the natural environment as a function of feedback was assessed. Seventeen normotensives screened for blood pressure lability were randomly assigned to two groups. These subjects were then asked to estimate their systolic and diastolic blood pressure values two times per day over a 4-week period. Feedback for accuracy of blood pressure discriminations was implemented across the two groups in a multiple baseline fashion, using a feedback withdrawal condition in Group I to assess maintenance effects over time. Results showed improvement in discrimination accuracy for subjects in both groups when feedback was used, and no decrement in performance over a 2-week period after feedback was removed for subjects in Group I. Discrimination of systolic pressures improved at a slightly faster rate than discrimination of diastolic pressures.     

THE GOOD PRODUCTIVITY GAME: INCREASING WORK PERFORMANCE IN A REHABILITATION SETTING1

Simple reinforcement systems have been used to improve performance in a broad range of settings. For example, in classrooms, the “Good Behavior Game” has been shown to be very effective (Barrish, Saunders, and Wolf, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1969, 2 , 119–124). In industry, small bonuses were used to increase the punctuality of workers (Hermann, deMontes, Dominquez, Montes, and Hopkins, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1973, 6 , 503–572). In a sheltered workshop setting, Shroeder (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1972, 5 , 45–52) examined work rates under varying frequencies and amounts of reinforcement and response force. The present study involved the utilization of simple group contingencies to increase productivity in a rehabilitation industry. Four state hospital residents who were trainees at a rehabilitation industry participated in the study which examined the effects of feedback, and feedback plus the “Good Productivity Game” to improve work output. The task, for which the employees were paid a wage, involved sorting boards by size. When the employees were provided with feedback on the number of boards sorted during the observation period, productivity increased slightly over baseline. After a return to baseline, the “Good Productivity Game” was played. For performance, the game afforded the employees pseudo-competition (in that teams were paired against each other, but both teams always “won”) and simple rewards such as candy and early work termination. The game improved performance by 104% over the second baseline and by 64% over the third baseline. Data gathered on rates of on-task behavior by the employees correlate with the productivity rates. Data gathered on rates of staff attention paid to employees show little difference across conditions, thus corroborating the function of the “Good Productivity Game” in increasing work output. Although no formal data were collected, the staff continued to use the game with considerable success after the formal termination of the study. The “Good Productivity Game” appears useful in increasing work output in a rehabilitation setting. Further research should concentrate on the utility of the game throughout longer periods of the workday and over extended periods of time.     

A company-based lottery to reduce the personal driving of employees

A company-based lottery was used to reduce the number of nonessential miles employees drove their personal cars each day and thereby save gasoline. Employees were divided into an experimental and a contrast group. The experimental design involved two conditions: (a) a baseline in which no consequences were attached to driving behavior, and (b) a month-long lottery in which the experimentals were rewarded for decreasing their percentage of average miles driven per day relative to their initial baseline average. The experimentals received an ABA order of conditions while the contrast group remained in baseline. The lottery condition consisted of four weekly lotteries and one grand drawing held at the end of the month. During the lottery condition, the experimentals reduced their average daily mileage by 11.6% relative to their initial baseline (7.85 miles per employee per day) while the contrast employees increased their average mileage by 21.2%. Both groups exceeded their initial baseline averages in the return to baseline. The study was almost cost-effective because the experimentals' gas savings ($75) was within $4 of the cost of motivating them to reduce their mileage ($79).     

Second-order schedules with paired auditory brief stimuli

Pigeons were exposed to multiple second-order schedules of paired and unpaired brief stimuli in which responding on the main key was reinforced according to a fixed-interval thirty-second schedule by a brief stimulus (a tone in the paired schedule) and advancement to the next segment of the second-order schedule. In Experiment 1, a response on the second key was required during the tone in its fourth and final presentation to produce food. Responses during earlier brief stimuli indicated the extent to which the final brief stimulus was discriminated from preceding ones. Responding was comparable during all tones, extending prior findings with visual paired brief stimuli and weakening explanations of subjects' failure to discriminate between brief-stimulus presentations in terms of elicited responding. In Experiment 2 the number of fixed-interval segments comprising the second-order schedules varied from one through eight. Although main-key response rates increased across segments in both experiments, they increased much less sharply with a variable number of segments. These results suggest that the increase in main-key response rates across segments is due primarily to a degree of temporal discrimination not reflected on the second key. Main-key response rates were higher on paired auditory brief-stimulus schedules than on unpaired visual brief-stimulus schedules, especially in Experiment 2, thus further extending findings with visual brief stimuli to second-order schedules with auditory brief stimuli.     

Differential effects of fixed- and variable-time feedback on production rates of elementary school children

The performance of 26 third-grade students who worked on individual weekly academic tasks was compared under fixed- and variable-time "home reports". During fixed-time home reports, each student was given a report to take home on Friday that indicated the quantity of work the student had completed that week, contained comments concerning the quality of the work, and had a space for parental remarks and signature. The same report was given during the variable-time reports, except that seven to nine students were randomly selected each day to receive a home report. During variable-time reporting, students completed more assignments and completed assignments on a greater percentage of available workdays than during fixed-time reporting. The teachers' preference for the variable-time reporting was one additional advantage for the variable system.     

A durable recording and feedback system

A durable low-cost data-recording and feedback system is described. Data transcribed with a special pen onto a plastic sheet can be removed only with two solvents. These data can be displayed for feedback purposes without fear of destruction.