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Case difficulty of simulation software.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Preliminary results concerning difficulty levels of client cases in "Simulations in Developmental Disabilities: SIDD" are presented. Participants conducted assessments to identify causes of problem behavior and propose treatments for 10 clients. Although SIDD may teach clinical decision-making skills, providing numerous cases did not guarantee learning for all participants. Exposure to a difficult case early in instruction was associated with better overall performance by participants. Additionally, treatment performance best indicated perceived difficulty level. Further experimental research comparing order of difficulty is recommended.

Introduction

Clinical training in behavioral psychology can involve teaching students the skills required to design effective interventions for clients with developmental disabilities and challenging behaviors. In particular, functional assessment is recognized as best clinical practice (Fox & Davis, 2005) and required by law for children with challenging behaviors in the classroom (IDEA, 1997). Functional assessment entails various assessments used to identify the possible causes of the problem behavior to design effective treatment. To effectively utilize functional assessment, students must master basic competencies such as: weighing the relative merits of various assessment strategies; interpreting assessment findings; determining the cause of behavior; selecting effective treatments based on the case particulars; interpreting graphed data; and evaluating treatment effectiveness. Moreover, these higher-order thinking skills must be applied across varying client characteristics, types of problem behaviors, various situations, and causes of problem behavior. Developing cases and adjusting teaching strategies to establish these skills can sometimes be difficult or complex.

Computer-based client case simulations can support teaching the decision-making skills involved in these complex situations. For instance, representative client cases can be programmed into the instruction to bridge students' learning between the classroom and live field work (Seabury, 2003), and instruction can be tailored to the learners' current conceptual skill levels (Desrochers & Gentry, 2005). Moreover, analyses of the student decision-making skills can be examined from automatically recorded data to evaluate and improve teaching methodology. Learning to solve complex clinical problems requires exposure to multiple cases of varying difficulty level to promote generalization of the concepts taught (Stokes & Osnes, 1989). Irrelevant case features can be presented along with critical features so that students learn to discriminate the critical case features (Foxx & Faw, 2000).

Several methods of exposing learners to different levels of difficulty of case material exist. One approach is to present easier cases early with more complex cases occurring once student mastery is attained (Martin & Pear, 2007). This procedure may reduce student errors and lead to less frustration, quicker acquisition, and less remediation time. Matching instructional material to students' level of reading ability facilitates generalization to new material better than presenting material that is too difficult (Daly, Bonfigio, Mattson, Persampieri, & Foreman-Yates, 2005)....

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