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PubMed1992

Behavior analysis of residential program development.

When institutions are viewed not as locales but as forms of organizing and regulating human behavior, we see that we "deinstitutionalize" by changing the way we organize and regulate, not necessarily by moving people about. This paper examines residential program development as a process of designing and developing community learning environments. The paper asks "What are the essential behaviors of designing community environments?", that is, what do residential program developers do? Six essential dimensions of program development are identified, and each dimension is critiqued in terms of contemporary practices and needs for innovation. The paper concludes that behavior analysts can play an important role in changing the nature of human service organizations.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed1977

Observer agreement, credibility, and judgment: some considerations in presenting observer agreement data.

Graphical and statistical indices employed to represent observer agreement in interval recording are described as "judgmental aids", stimuli to which the researcher and scientific community must respond when viewing observer agreement data. The advantages and limitations of plotting calibrating observer agreement data and reporting conventional statistical aids are discussed in the context of their utility for researchers and research consumers of applied behavior analysis. It is argued that plotting calibrating observer data is a useful supplement to statistical aids for researchers but is of only limited utility for research consumers. Alternatives to conventional per cent agreement statistics for research consumers include reporting special agreement estimates (e.g., per cent occurrence agreement and nonoccurrence agreement) and correlational statistics (e.g., Kappa and Phi).

Journal Article↗