A REVIEW OF BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS RESEARCH IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Ward, P., & Barrett, T. (2002). A review of behavior analysis research

in physical education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 21,

242- 266. Annie Machamer

Type - Purpose - Framework• Type: Review of Literature

• Purpose: To examine intervention studies in relation to the behavioral theory

• Theoretical Framework: Reviewing multiple samples of research on behavior analysis focusing on four parts; preservice or inservice teacher behavior, student learning, class management, or student learning specifically focused on students with disabilities in adapted or inclusive settings.

Background and significance of study

• Background: Viewing articles that assessed the effects of behavioral interventions in P-12 or teacher preparation settings. Studies were organized into the four categories, observing each individually.

• Four Categories: preservice or inservice teacher behavior, student learning, class management, student learning specifically focused on students with disabilities in adaptive or inclusive settings.

• Significance: Describes several behavioral interventions in multiple settings viewing different research methods. This allows us to determine areas of improvement in implementing future research to better assess generality, maintenance, or social validity.

Methods/Analysis• The articles to be considered for this review of ABA followed a thorough

four step process of selection.

• Step 1: choosing only studies that occurred in physical education, adapted physical education, or preservice/inservice training for teachers.

• Step 2: Coding into (a) author and date of publication, (b) number and description of participants, (c) setting, (d) design, (e) the dependent variable or variable, (f) independent variable or variable, (g) whether treatment integrity was assessed, (h) whether generalization across settings, behaviors, and participants was assessed, (i) whether maintenance was assessed, (j) whether social validation was assessed.

Analysis Methods• Step 3: Review by others to categorize done by 2 graduate

students and one co-author not involved in the selection process

• Step 4: Agreement of review between all articles and all participants (chart comparison of purpose of article)

• After this process was complete, 34 articles were chosen to be applied to the ABA review.

Findings/Main arguments• Majority of behavioral studies focus on interventions designed

to improve teaching behaviors.

• Most studies were systematic replications. • Most studied intervention was peers as mediators of

instruction in both RPE and APE.

Conclusions/implications for practice and/or future research

• The research has been completed by a number of researchers in a number of areas, leading to diversity in replication strength, which give confidence in results.

• Treatment integrity should become mandatory, and assessment of maintenance and generality should occur more often.

• Future research should discuss theory behind interventions that are used in their studies.

Questions?

• Coaching studies were automatically eliminated from the review of research because of the particular setting. Do you think that viewing these studies may effect the results found? If so how?

• The article review consisted of articles from 1970-2000. Do you believe that this may have limited research? Is this history of research important before 1970? Why?

• Additional questions………..?