Running Head: PREFERENCE ASSESSMENT WITHOUT REPLACEMENT

Preference Assessment Without Replacement

Caeli Welker

EDU 348
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A Preference Assessment is used to help determine what items can be used as a reinforcer

for students with disabilities. According to Kooken, there are the following types of preference

assessments: ​multiple stimulus without replacement, multiple stimulus with replacement, paired

stimulus, single stimulus, and free operant​ (2015).​ For the basis of this paper, the multiple

stimulus without replacement was used. In this type of assessment, the student chooses an item,

the item is not replaced, and the student chooses another item until the trial is complete. From

this “trial-based evaluation,” the assessor can determine a preference hierarchy specific to the

child being evaluated (Ledford, 2016). A preference hierarchy depicts a student’s

highly-prefered items, moderately-prefered items, and non-prefered items (Ledford, 2016). This

information can be used to encourage student target behavior in the classroom by presenting the

student with a reinforcer that has proven to be specific to the students desires.

Participant

Sarah (pseudonym to protect student’s identity), who was the student of which the

assessment was given, is a 6-year-old second grader. She is a caucasian female who currently

attends Wintersville Elementary School in Wintersville, Ohio. Overall, Sarah seems to be a

happy girl. She is very social with her classmates, and she laughs often. However, from what

the general education teacher could share, Sarah comes from a broken home. Her parents are

divorced, and they have joint custody of her, which allows Sarah to spend an equal amount of

time in both her mother’s and her father’s home. This background may be the source of Sarah’s

misbehavior. While Sarah does exceedingly well academically in school, it is hard to motivate

her to do anything. She is very smart, but she often acts out by refusing to complete her work,

by talking out of turn, by distracting her classmates, and by continually asking the teacher for
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help and attention. Through observation, the root of this behavior is possibly that she craves

attention due to her parents divorce.

The assessor thought it useful to conduct this Preference Assessment on Sarah to see

what kind of motivators can be used to help her accomplish her work and pay attention in class

without the teacher having to nag her to complete her work every five minutes. Through

observation and speaking with the classroom teacher, the assessor determined that Sarah loves to

bring jewelry to school, she enjoys fiddling with things in her hands, and she often asks when it

is time for lunch. These clues were helpful for the assessor as she searched for objects to use

during the Preference Assessment with Sarah.

Setting

The assessor and Sarah remained inside Sarah’s classroom during the assessment, which

took place at 10:30am on Monday morning, November 6th, 2017. They sat at a table in a back

corner, with the assessor facing the classroom and Sarah facing the assessor and the wall. Where

they sat, half of the table was cleared, while the other half of the table was full of papers and

books. This did not seem to distract Sarah, because she paid no attention to the mess. While the

assessment was being conducted, the classroom teacher continued with the lesson, but because

Sarah was facing away from the action, she was not distracted.

Materials

As stated in the ​Participant s​ ection, the assessor used observation of Sarah and

conversation with the teacher in order to decide what objects would prove to be good motivators

and reinforcers for Sarah. Through this observation and conversation, the assessor was able to
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determine that Sarah loves jewelry, fidgeting with little trinkets and basically anything that could

prove an escape from completing her work.

From these discoveries, the assessor decided to use the following items for the

assessment: a colorful spin top, a purple bracelet, Pringles chips, an iPod that only plays music,

and a green squishy toy. The spin top and squishy toy were chosen because of Sarah’s interest in

fidgeting with small items. She has often tried to sneak little trinkets of her own into school.

The Pringles were chosen because it provides a bit of variety to the items, and children are often

motivated by snacks. The iPod was chosen because Sarah has been seen to search for ways to

distract herself from her work, and the assessor thought it would be a good motivator for Sarah to

complete her work if she were allowed to listen to a song or two afterwards. The bracelet was

chosen because Sarah loves jewelry. The assessor has noticed that she is often seen wearing a

different piece of jewelry each week. During the assessment, these items were placed in a row in

front of Sarah, and as she chose each item, she placed the last item she chose to the side.

Procedures

Because the assessment was given in the classroom with the other 19 students and the

teacher still present, the assessor strategically placed Sarah facing away from the commotion so

that she would not be distracted. To help Sarah understand what was required of her, the

assessor stated, “Okay Sarah, I am going to show you five different things, and you will get to

pick which one is your favorite or which one you would like to use. And then you’re going to

pick your next favorite, and so on. Okay?” To begin, the assessor placed the five item on the

desk in a row in front of Sarah and held a clipboard in front of them so that she could not see

them. Next, the assessor removed the clipboard and asked Sarah to pick one. The assessor
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replaced the clipboard, logged the choice, removed the clipboard, and asked again. To vary the

way the assessor said “pick one,” she also said, “pick your favorite,” “which one do you want?”

and “which one do you want the most?” When the first trial ended, the assessor replaced all of

the items along the table in a different order and began again. Between each of Sarah’s picks,

the assessor also rearranged the items. This continued in the same manner for nine trials.

Results

There were three instances when other students in the class came up to the assessor to ask

her questions during the assessment. A few students wanted help with her work, to which the

assessor kindly responded that she was busy and the students must go ask the teacher for help.

This did not seem to distract Sarah. She was ready for the next choice. At another point in the

assessment, a student came over and inquired what the two were doing, to which the assessor

calmly responded that Sarah was helping her with a task and that they needed to be left alone. It

turned out that the minor interruptions were actually helpful. They provided a little bit of change

for Sarah so that she could look at the choices affresh and maybe realize a new desire for a

certain item.

Throughout the assessment, Sarah was, for the most part, consistent in her choices. There

were a few times that she explored a new idea by choosing a different item first, but in half of the

trials, Sarah chose the same item first. Also in regards to Sarah’s consistency, she always left the

same item for last during every single trial. To demonstrate Sarah’s consistency, here is an

example of a trial that is identical to five of the nine trials that were conducted:
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Item Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 4 TOTAL

Bracelet N Y - - 2nd

Pringles N N N N 5th

Squishy Toy Y - - - 1st

Music N N Y - 3rd

Spin Top N N N Y 4th

By referencing this chart and the information given, one can conclude that Sarah chose

the squishy toy first in five out of the nine trials, and that she always left the Pringles for last in

every five of the nine trials.

In order for the assessor to determine the hierarchy of Sarah’s preferred items, she used a

formula in which she added up the numbers of the total that each item was chosen. For example,

if the bracelet was chosen second in the first trial, fourth in the second trial, and first in the third

trial, the assessor would add two plus four plus one (2+4+1) to equal seven. Every item would

then be listed least to greatest according to the total. Using this formula, the following hierarchy

is what resulted from the preference assessment with Sarah:

● Squishy Toy: 2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 = 11

● Bracelet: 4+1+3+2+2+2+2+3+2 = 21

● Music: 1+3+4+3+3+3+4+2+3 = 26

● Spin Top: 3+4+2+4+4+4+3+4+4 = 32

● Pringles: 5+5+5+5+5+5+5+5+5 = 45
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As these results clearly depict, Sarah preferred the squishy toy the most, the bracelet

second most, and the Pringles last of all.

Discussion

By conducting this Preference Assessment, the assessor now knows what reinforces will

be helpful for Sarah. Relaying the results to the teacher, the teacher can now provide Sarah with

something to motivate her to do her work and to behave appropriately. Sarah’s top item on her

preference hierarchy was the squishy toy. The teacher can use this reinforcer by, for example,

explaining to Sarah that she would get to play with the toy for ten minutes if she completes her

worksheet. Because the item at the top of the preference hierarchy will function as a more

powerful reinforcer than the lower items on the list (DeLeon & Iwata, n.d.), the teacher could use

the preference hierarchy in a another way. The teacher could motivate Sarah by giving her a

choice: Sarah can complete her worksheet and receive five minutes to play with the bracelet

(which ranked second on the hierarchy) or Sarah can complete all of her worksheets for first

period during first period and receive ten minutes to play with the squishy toy (which ranked

first).

Because the Pringles were not chosen even once, the assessor concluded that this was not

an appropriate item to include in the assessment. For future assessments, the assessor has

resolved to perform thorough investigation of the student’s interests in order to bring items to the

assessment that can all be potential reinforcers. Additionally, the assessor realized she was not

totally prepared before the assessment, because she had not written in the items in every box.

This proved to be a mistake, and the assessor resolved to make sure she was thoroughly prepared

for any future assessments by filling in the boxes before beginning.

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Bibliography

DeLeon, I., & Iwata, B. (n.d.). Multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference

assessment session description. Retrieved November 14, 2017, from

https://www.kennedykrieger.org/sites/default/files/patient-care-files/mswo_preference_assess

ment.pdf

Kooken, K. (2015, March 4). Stimulus preference assessments - catalyst documentation. Retrieved

November 14, 2017, from http://wiki.datafinch.com/display/DOC/Stimulus Preference

Assessments

Ledford, J. (2016, May 10). Preference assessments. Retrieved November 14, 2017, from

http://vkc.mc.vanderbilt.edu/ebip/preference-assessments/