Increasing Active Student Responding in a University Applied Behavior Analysis Course: The Effect of Daily Assessment and Response Cards on End of Week Quiz Scores

The study compared the effects of daily assessment and response cards on average weekly quiz scores in an introduction to applied behavior analysis course. An alternating treatments design (Kazdin 1982, Single-case research designs. New York: Oxford University Press; Cooper et al. 2007, Applied behavior analysis. Upper Saddle River: Merrill/Prentice Hall) was used to analyze the effects of response cards and daily assessment on average weekly quiz scores. Differential treatment effects were found between the daily assessment and response card conditions. When compared to baseline, students’ consistently earned higher quiz scores on end of week quizzes in the daily assessment condition. Response cards produced mixed results. More substantial effects were revealed when analyzing individual student performance. In some cases, twice as many students earned 90% or better when either response cards or daily assessment were used compared to baseline. We discuss the implications of these results for other content areas and student demographics.