Analysis of Article about the Effectiveness of a Workshop Comprised of Useful Training Elements - Essay Example

It is imperative to note that distress is not controlled or caused by the behavior analyst (Blell, Rosales & Ruiz, 2010, pg. 148) What were the methods used to conduct the research?

The participants in the research were four females who were between the ages of 20 and 33. These graduate students were all part of the same master’s degree program and worked with parents of special needs children on a daily basis. The setting of the dayroom on the university campus was ideal for conducting the training workshops. The materials consisted of a guide for paper training as well as several examples in the form of pictures and videos. These questionnaires were filled by the subjects before as well as after the workshop so that data could be collected for further evaluation.

Furthermore, the measures for the study comprised analyzing verbal, nonverbal, and written verbal behaviors. What were the results of the research? The results of the research indicate that all the participants of the study displayed the use of more support strategies above pre-training levels when it came to role-playing as well as written assessments. This was a result of mainly a concise 3-hour training regarding communication skills. What were the conclusions of the research? The results of the study lead us to conclude that through the use of “verbal instruction, rationale, modeling, role-play, feedback, and rehearsal” behavioral analysts can be trained to display and practice an increased amount of support strategies when faced with situations in which emotionally stressed individuals have to be dealt with.

These results coincide and support the research question and can be related to adding to the generality of prior research using training packages that comprise “instruction, rationale, modeling, role-play, feedback, and rehearsal to teach various communication skills to adults (Bates, 1980; Hall, et al., 1980; Isaacs, et al., 1982; Iwata, et al.,1982; FH Jones & Eimers, 1975; Kohr, et al., 1988) In your conclusions if you were to grade the research article, what grade (A through F, with A being the highest grade) would you give the researcher?

If it were up to me I would give the research article a B. This is mainly because firstly the measures developed are extensive seeing how they have used not just one but several aspects, such as “verbal instruction, rationale, modeling, role-play, feedback, and rehearsal”, to determine the effect of training on behavior analysts' practices of support strategies. Also, results coincide and support not just the research questions but also add value to prior research done on the subject.

In order to make this article better suggestion is to conduct this study using a variable sample, that is, instead of using just female graduate participants use male subjects too in order to increase the scope of the incorporation of individuals from different backgrounds should be incorporated to test the role that culture plays and how it might vary the training behaviors that the subjects display.