BEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENT

The purpose of behavioral assessment is to delineate behavioral deficits, inappropriate behaviors, and the frequency with which different behaviors occur in various situations. The first step is to specify the behaviors in such a way that there is little question about whether they occurred. For example, if the behavior modifier were interested in how afraid a person is of heights, he might measure change in heart rate when the person is at various heights and define fear in terms of this physiological response, or he might measure how high up a person will go by himself. If he wanted to measure how tidy a child is, he might define tidiness in terms of making the bed and hanging up clothes. The point is that the assessment focuses on objective, measurable behaviors. Behavioral assessment deals with behaviors and their interrelationships. It avoids mapping people into constructs or categories that cannot be directly observed or measured, but only indirectly inferred from some of the behaviors. If a person reports being generally uptight most of the time, behavioral assessment focuses on his behavioral strengths and deficits (including interpersonal skills, vocational skills, thoughts, emotions, etc.) that lead to the person being uptight. There is no need in behavior modification to add to this assessment hypothesized conditions of such inferred constructs as ego-strength, self-concept, or psycho-sexual development. Similarly behavioral assessment minimizes labeling or categorizing the person. The question is what does the person do, not what sort of person is he. Several possible problems may result from labeling a person: The practitioner may respond to the client too much in terms of the label and thus overlook some important behaviors or incorrectly assume the client to be similar in some ways to someone else with the same label. Other people, such as peers, teachers, and ward attendants may also respond and perceive the person too much in terms of how he is labeled. The label may saddle the person with an undesired social stigma. And if the person learns how he has been labeled, it may cause fear and anxiety and may result in the person acting in ways that match how he thinks a person so labeled should act (an example of self-fulfilling prophecy). Thus labels such as paranoid schizophrenic, socially maladjusted, and slow learner are generally avoided. The way behavior modification assessment is carried out varies dramatically with the type of client and type of problems. It may involve sitting in the back of a classroom recording the behaviors of various students. It may be done indirectly from the reports of parents or teachers. It may involve measuring the amount of litter in a campground or the number of aggressive assaults following a particular television show. http://www.google.com.ph/#

chick dko sure to wala akong Makita na exact para sa report eh article lang ito. video- film TEACHING TIPS: USING FILMS IN THE CLASSROOM FOLLOW THREE CRITICAL RULES There are a number of steps that can be taken to reduce any potential problems associated with using a movie and to make it a beneficial experience for you and your students. It is important to note that I believe that the same teaching tips apply to the use of theatrical films and educational videos, although there are generally fewer time concerns with educational videos. In my opinion there are three crucial rules for insuring successful use of videos in the classroom. View the film before the class sees it. Previewing allows you to answer a number of crucial questions. Does the content merit the use of class time? Are there portions of the movie that can/should be skipped? Is there any particularly objectionable material? If so, does the importance of the material outweigh the possibility of offending a student? Always watch the movie with the class (Gross Davis, 1993). In the mind of some students, and some colleagues, a film means, "No learning today" or "The teacher is feeling lazy." If you use the film as a substitute for yourself or if you leave the room and come back when the film is over you are reinforcing these beliefs. Be aware of copyright laws. In general, legally obtained copies of materials can be used in face-to-face classrooms for educational purposes without violating copyright laws. However, the issue quickly becomes murkier if you want to tape something off television to show in your class. At this point the Fair Use exemption to United States copyright law probably comes into effect. The Fair Use exemption allows for educational use of copyrighted material without permission of the author (amongst other uses). However, Fair Use comprises a short excerpt that is attributed to the original source. Further, the use of the material should not harm the commercial value of the material. If you plan on using a longer piece of material I suggest that you contact your University counsel to determine your University's policy concerning copyrighted material. HOW DOES ONE FIND A GOOD FILM OR VIDEO? There is no shortage of films that contain psychological content. In fact, you stand to be overwhelmed by the possibilities if you are not selective in your approach to finding a good film! The two places that I always begin are Instructor's Manuals for the class and my colleagues. Use of the Instructor's Manual insures that the films are relevant to the course and content being covered. However, remember that this does not guarantee that the film is of high quality or useful for your particular classroom. No matter how highly recommended a film is - make sure that you preview it first. If you have more time I suggest that you use the Internet to find additional films, particularly theatrical releases that might be helpful. The best site that I have found for this purpose is www.psychmovies.com. KNOW YOUR CLASSROOM AND EQUIPMENT You can spend quite a while previewing films, preparing summaries, and designing exams only to have all of your efforts undermined if some basic preparation is ignored. Remember to practice operating the machinery that you will use in the classroom that you will use to show the film or video. This will help you to determine if you have the proper materials (e.g., adequate sized television, extension cords) and to check to see if there might be barriers to visibility (e.g., glare from late afternoon sun). Time is of the Essence in the Classroom - Most teachers feel that there is never enough time to cover what they want. So how does a professor take advantage of the benefits of movies without sacrificing other important material? Do not feel obligated to watch a whole video from beginning to end. Feel free to use brief clips and /or sections of both scholarly and popular videos. This approach has become even easier with the advent of DVD technology that allows you to choose scenes with the push of a button.

One warning with this approach - make sure that you provide your students with the appropriate context to understand the video clip. For example, give your students any important vocabulary or proper names that they might need to know before they see the film (Gross Davis, 1993). Also, provide them with a question or set of questions that they should be able to answer/discuss after viewing the film. Use of movies - Feel free to fast-forward through the "fluff" when using longer portions of movies. This will allow more time for discussion and tends to keep the students interested in the movie. The student feedback that I have received is that they resent "wasting time" watching material that is not relevant or appropriate. When using this approach let the students know ahead of time that you will be skipping parts of the film and take care to not undermine the continuity of the film. WHEN THE FILM OR VIDEO TAKES UP THE ENTIRE CLASS PERIOD Another time issue occurs when the film takes up the whole class. Often the transition to the next class is awkward and scholarly momentum is lost. One method for dealing with this problem is to provide a small assignment to be completed for the next class. This can be as simple as "Generate one thought/reaction/question related to the content of the film." These thoughts and questions can be used as the jumping off point for discussion in the next class. An alternate and frequently enjoyable assignment is to ask your students to act like movie critics and rate the film or video. Ask your students to evaluate both the overall presentation and psychological content separately. Then the next class can begin by asking how many thumbs up the film received on each factor. This assignment regenerates enthusiasm and is a much more useful prompt than "Any thoughts about the film?" Afterwards, work with them to insure that they understand the important concepts covered in the film. Test on Film and Video Material - Another potentially sticky issue is whether to test students on film content and, if so, how to test them. agree with Gross Davis' (1993) assertion that if film material is important enough to show in class then it should also appear on a test. However, there are bounds to this logic. If you are merely showing a brief clip to highlight a concept or to spur on conversation then a test question is probably not merited. For instance, use a humorous scene from Monty Pythons' Search for the Holy Grail where the medieval townsfolk are trying to decide whether a woman is a witch, as a way to indicate the strides that have been made in the assessment of abnormality. Using this scene gets my point across nicely but would never test students on it. If you are going to test students on the material you need to tell them before the movie or video. suggest that you tell them not to take notes and that instead you will provide them with notes or a summary after the film. My rationale for this is simple. If students are taking notes they are not watching the movie. Further, for optimal viewing you want the lights turned down which makes note taking difficult. Finally, the issue arises - How should I test my students on the film content? Many films (moreso than educational videos) present potential problems in that they are more open to differences in interpretation than are lectures or textbooks. Questions pertaining to movies posed in an open-ended manner (e.g., essays) so that students have room to explain the rationale behind their answers work well. Other faculty ask two or three simple factual multiple-choice questions on exams, rewarding students, in essence, for attendance and paying attention.

Anderson, D.D. (1992). Using feature films as tools for analysis in a psychology and law course. Teaching of Psychology, 19, 155-157.

Iba rin ito chick Using video for listening assessment Many authors have claimed the benefits of using video in class: -because of its capacity to motivate students (Oxford, Park Oh & Sumrall, 1993) -as a way to improve the paralinguistic features of language (Lonergran, 1983, Sempleski & Tomalin, 1990) - because it gives the opportunity of using real discourse and materials in class. (Geddes & White, 1978) -as a basic source of socio-cultural content, raising cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity. (Kramsch, 1993) Despite all these studies, video as an assessment method is usually avoided , neglecting the influence that visual elements have in our everyday communication. Conclusion -student do prefer video assessment rather than simple audio -the difficulty of the written questions and the sound quality should be adjusted -teaching and testing should be in harmony, so if video is going to be used as an assessment method it should be also have a prominent presence syllabus.

Dagdag lang to chick kung makakatulong nakita ko kasi sa syllabus yung how is behavioral assessment conducted

Techniques for Conducting the Functional Behavioural Assessment

Indirect assessment. Indirect or informant assessment relies heavily upon the use of structured interviews with students, teachers, and other adults who have direct responsibility for the students concerned. Individuals should structure the interview so that it yields information regarding specific questions such as:

In what settings do you observe the behaviour? Are there any settings where the behaviour does not occur? Who is present when the behaviour occurs? What activities or interactions take place just prior to the behaviour? What usually happens immediately after the behaviour? Can you think of a more acceptable behaviour that might replace this behaviour?

Interviews with the student may be useful in identifying how he or she perceived the situation and what caused her or him to react or act in the way they did. Examples of questions that one may ask include: What were you thinking just before you threw the textbook? How did the assignment make you feel? Can you tell me how (the teacher) expects you to contribute to class lectures? When you have a "temper tantrum" in class, what usually happens afterward?

Direct assessment. Direct assessment involves observing and recording situational factors surrounding a problem behaviour (e.g., antecedent and consequent events). A member of the IEP team may observe the behaviour in the setting that it is likely to occur, and record

the data. The observer may use a matrix or scatter plot to chart the relationship between specific instructional variables and student responses. These techniques also will be useful in identifying possible environmental factors (e.g., seating arrangements), activities (e.g., independent work), or temporal factors (e.g., mornings) that may influence the behaviour. These tools can be developed specifically to address the type of variable in question, and can be customized to analyze specific behaviours and situations (e.g., increments of 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or even a few days). Regardless of the tool, observations that occur consistently across time and situations, and that reflect both quantitative and qualitative measures of the behaviour in question, are recommended.

Data analysis.Once the team is satisfied that enough data have been collected, the next step is to compare and analyze the information. This analysis will help the team to determine whether or not there are any patterns associated with the behaviour (e.g., whenever Trish does not get her way, she reacts by hitting someone). If patterns cannot be determined, the team should review and revise (as necessary) the functional behavioural assessment plan to identify other methods for assessing behaviour. Hypothesis statement. Drawing upon information that emerges from the analysis, school personnel can establish a hypothesis regarding the function of the behaviours in question. This hypothesis predicts the general conditions under which the behaviour is most and least likely to occur (antecedents), as well as the probable consequences that serve to maintain it. For instance, should a teacher report that Lucia calls out during instruction, a functional behavioural assessment might reveal the function of the behaviour is to gain attention (e.g., verbal approval of classmates), avoid instruction (e.g., difficult assignment), seek excitement (i.e., external stimulation), or both to gain attention and avoid a lowinterest subject. Only when the relevance of the behaviour is known is it possible to speculate the true function of the behaviour and establish an individual behaviour intervention plan. In other words, before any plan is set in motion, the team needs to formulate a plausible explanation (hypothesis) for the student's behaviour. It is then desirable to manipulate various conditions to verify the assumptions made by the team regarding the function of the behaviour. For instance, the team working with Lucia in the example above may hypothesize that during class discussions, Lucia calls out to get peer attention. Thus, the teacher might make accommodations in the environment to ensure that Lucia gets the peer attention she seeks as a consequence of appropriate, rather than inappropriate behaviours. If this manipulation changes Lucia's behaviour, the team can assume their hypothesis was correct; if Lucia's behaviour remains unchanged following the environmental manipulation, a new hypothesis needs to be formulated using data collected during the functional behavioural assessment. http://www.google.com.ph/#