Group Contingency
Study: Kowalewicz & Coffee (2014)

Describe how students were selected to participate in the study:

The students were selected based on their enrollment in a classroom with high rates of disruptive behavior. Baseline data confirmed that these were issues.

Describe how students were identified as being at risk for academic failure (AI) or as having emotional/behavioral difficulties (BI):

Half of the classrooms contained students with a behavior support plan. There is no indication of whether these students had a formal designation of EBD.

ACADEMIC INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• below the 30th percentile on local or national norm, or
• identified disability related to the focus of the intervention?

%

BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• emotional disability label,
• placed in an alternative school/classroom,
• non-responsive to Tiers 1 and 2, or
• designation of severe problem behaviors on a validated scale or through observation?

%

Please describe the study design:

The research design was an ABAB withdrawal design with the “A” phases providing a baseline and compared with “B” phases in which the intervention was implemented. Moreover, the authors used embedded changing criterions. This design was implemented in all classrooms.

Clarify and provide a detailed description of the treatment in the submitted program/intervention:

The group contingency consisted of explicitly teaching the behavioral goals to the class through a formal lesson; researcher introducing the intervention to the class and describing the process of earning rewards; and implementing the mystery motivator portion of the intervention. The mystery motivator was the process of randomly selecting a threshold number of rule violations for the class to stay under to earn the reward. Specifically, the teacher would select a threshold number and put it into an envelope which would be revealed after the class period.

Clarify what procedures occurred during the control/baseline condition (third, competing conditions are not considered; if you have a third, competing condition [e.g., multi-element single subject design with a third comparison condition], in addition to your control condition, identify what the competing condition is [data from this competing condition will not be used]):

It appears as though the instructional tasks did not vary from baseline to intervention and that the implementation of the group contingency procedures were the only difference.

Please describe how replication of treatment effect was demonstrated (e.g., reversal or withdrawal of intervention, across participants, across settings)

The intervention effect was replicated through the ABAB design. The replication occurred from the initial baseline to the initial implementation of the group contingency and again in the next AB pairing.

Please indicate whether (and how) the design contains at least three demonstrations of experimental control (e.g., ABAB design, multiple baseline across three or more participants).

There were a total of three opportunities for the intervention effect to be demonstrated.

If the study is a multiple baseline, is it concurrent or non-concurrent?

N/A

How was the program delivered?

Individually
Small Group
Classroom

Study measures are classified as targeted, broader, or administrative data according to the following definitions:

• Targeted measures
  Assess outcomes, such as competencies or skills, that the program was directly targeted to improve.
  • In the academic domain, targeted measures typically are not the very items taught but rather novel items structured similarly to the content addressed in the program. For example, if a program taught word-attack skills, a targeted measure would be decoding of pseudo words. If a program taught comprehension of cause-effect passages, a targeted measure would be answering questions about cause-effect passages structured similarly to those used during intervention, but not including the very passages used for intervention.
  • In the behavioral domain, targeted measures evaluate aspects of external or internal behavior the program was directly targeted to improve and are operationally defined.
• Broader measures
  Assess outcomes that are related to the competencies or skills targeted by the program but not directly taught in the program.
  • In the academic domain, if a program taught word-level reading skill, a broader measure would be answering questions about passages the student reads. If a program taught calculation skill, a broader measure would be solving word problems that require the same kinds of calculation skill taught in the program.
  • In the behavioral domain, if a program taught a specific skill like on-task behavior in one classroom, a broader measure would be on-task behavior in another setting.
• Administrative data measures apply only to behavioral intervention tools and are measures such as office discipline referrals (ODRs) and graduation rates, which do not have psychometric properties as do other, more traditional targeted or broader measures.

If you have excluded a variable or data that are reported in the study being submitted, explain the rationale for exclusion: