Withdrawal and Changing Criterion Designs in Practice
Understanding the “when” and “why” of a research design is an important part of organizing and reporting intervention results. Now that you have gained insight into some common designs used in research and practice, it is time to put that knowledge to work. For this discussion, you will begin by selecting one of the scenarios below and providing information related to the scenario in your response. Be sure to identify either Scenario A or Scenario B in the title of your main post.

Scenario A

A college student, Disha, struggles with time management skills, often procrastinating on assignments, which results in missing course deadlines. This has resulted in increased stress and lower academic performance. Disha seeks assistance from a behavior analyst to address this issue. The analyst begins by observing Disha’s typical time management behaviors for a week without any intervention. They note the frequency of procrastination episodes, the time spent on various activities, and the number of missed deadlines. The analyst suggests a differential reinforcement for high rates (DRH) procedure, in which Disha’s initial criterion for success is to complete 50% of tasks before their deadlines. Then, as Disha demonstrates improvement, the criterion is raised to 70%, then 80%, and so on, until they complete 100% of the tasks prior to the deadline.

Scenario B

Lucia is a 4-year-old preschool student who frequently refuses to follow instructions and engage in classroom activities. Lucia’s refusals disrupt the learning environment and affect the overall classroom functioning. Lucia’s teacher is concerned about her behavior and seeks assistance from a behavior analyst to address this issue. The behavior analyst suggests using a token economy system to reinforce Lucia’s cooperation with following instructions during classroom activities. The behavior analyst first collects baseline data on the frequency of refusals for a week and then implements the token economy intervention. Lucia’s teacher wonders how she can prove that the token economy is really working to reduce the frequency of refusals. The behavior analyst suggests testing the impact of the token economy by stopping it for a few days, and then restarting the intervention again to compare the differences in refusal behaviors.

Please respond to the following:

Determine whether a withdrawal (ABAB) or changing criterion design would be an appropriate SCED to use for your chosen case.

Provide a rationale for your decision, grounded in the characteristics, advantages, and limitations of the design.

How could you change the case scenario to align with the characteristics of the other SCED presented this week? (For example, if you determined an ABAB design was appropriate for the scenario, how could you modify the scenario to fit a changing criterion design?)

Create one hypothetical set of data for the original scenario you selected and create a graphical representation of the data using Microsoft Excel. (*Note: Creating a changing criterion graph follows a similar process as constructing an ABAB graph.)

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