State University of New York at Stony Brook.
J Appl Behav Anal. 1975 Spring;8(1):43-51. doi: 10.1901/jaba.1975.8-43.
The influence of instructions and feedback from an experimenter on observational recordings of disruptive behavior was evaluated. Four subject-observers recorded four categories of disruptive behavior from videotapes of children in a classroom setting. Two sets of videotapes, labelled "baseline" and "treatment", were matched for rates of disruptive behavior in each category. The observers were told that two target behaviors were expected to decrease and the other two control behaviors were not expected to change during the treatment condition. During observational recording of treatment videotapes, the observers were given positive feedback when they reported decreases in the two target behaviors, and negative feedback when they reported either to change or increases in the two control behaviors. The target behaviors were recorded less frequently by observers, while recordings of control behaviors were unaffected during the treatment phase. These results suggest that contingent feedback to observers should be avoided as a possible source of bias in behavioral recordings.
评价了实验者的指导和反馈对观察性记录破坏性行为的影响。四位被试观察者从课堂环境下的儿童录像带上记录了四类破坏性行为。两套录像带，分别标记为“基线”和“治疗”，在每个类别中破坏性行为的发生率相匹配。观察者被告知，在治疗条件下，预计两种目标行为会减少，而另外两种控制行为预计不会改变。在治疗录像带的观察记录过程中，当观察者报告两种目标行为减少时，他们会得到积极反馈，而当他们报告两种控制行为发生变化或增加时，他们会得到消极反馈。在治疗阶段，目标行为的记录频率较低，而控制行为的记录则不受影响。这些结果表明，应避免将观察结果反馈给观察者，因为这可能是行为记录产生偏差的一个来源。
