Educational Psychology / Unit 11 EDP 1008 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
An ABC Analysis
The idea
An ABC analysis records what comes before a behavior, the behavior itself, and what follows, and it asks what the consequence does for the student. Two functions are common. Attention: the misbehavior brings a response from the teacher or classmates, even criticism, which reinforces it. Escape: the misbehavior removes the student from a disliked task, which negatively reinforces it. Antecedents worth checking include seating, teacher proximity, questioning style, transitions and the type of activity. The intervention follows from the function.
In practice
Worked example: whenever long division begins, a student tears his worksheet and is sent to the hallway. Antecedent: long division. Behavior: tearing the worksheet. Consequence: removal from the task. The function is escape, so being sent out rewards the behavior. The teacher instead breaks the task into short steps, keeps the student in the room and reinforces each finished step.
Where people slip
The same behavior can serve different functions for different students, so the consequence, not the behavior's appearance, decides the remedy. Attention given to a student who is otherwise isolated reinforces misbehavior; that is the plain mechanism, whatever label is used.
Your place on the trail
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