Date of Award

4-27-2023

Thesis Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Applied Behavior Analysis and Clinical Science

Department

Health Professions

Abstract

Visual analysis is the technology used in behavior analysis by researchers and practitioners to interpret their data to make clinical-based decisions. Due to recent studies uncovering varied results of visual analysis reliability, we sought to assess decision-making skills based on graph inspection. Twelve behavior analysts participated in this study by taking an online survey that assessed their ability to visually analyze a series of graphs. One subset of graphs resembled graphs commonly seen in published articles whereas the second subset resembled graphs from software programs more commonly seen in practice (e.g., in practice software) to assess their ability to generalize. This study also evaluated using a decision-making algorithm as an effective aid. Eight out of twelve participants did not meet the mastery criterion in the initial assessment phase, and only one participant then met the mastery criterion with the decision-making algorithm. The four participants that originally met mastery in baseline did not show any significant differences in responses between the graphs seen in the publication versus graphs populated in practice software programs.

Rights Holder

Marina Forsythe

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