Comparing the Effects of Digital and Physical SAFMEDS Cards on the Acquisition and Fluency of Behavioral Terms
SAFMEDS or say-all-fast-minute-every-day-shuffled, is a precision teaching-based method of instruction typically used within classroom settings. With SAFMEDS, the focus is on seeing the stimulus (e.g., the definition on the front of a flashcard) and saying a response (e.g., the corresponding term), and this stimulus-response relationship is embedded within a basic instructional procedure (Quigley et al., 2018). Although there is ample research demonstrating the effectiveness of SAFMEDS on student learning, there is little research comparing the use of physical (Graf & Auman, 2005) and digital stimuli (Velasquez, 2019) during SAFMEDS instruction. The purpose of this study was to compare the acquisition and fluency of behavioral abbreviations (terms) using digital (i.e., Quizlet) and physical stimuli during SAFMEDS instruction. The results of the current study indicate that both digital and physical stimuli produced similar learning, with improvement indexes slightly favoring the digital card set. Although both instructional stimuli generally proved effective in the acquisition and fluency of behavioral terms, individual differences between participants were noted in learning pictures and preferences therefore more research is needed to understand the conditions of use for each type of instructional stimuli.
Behavioral sciences, Education, Behavior Analysis, Precision Teaching, Remote Learning, RESA, SAFMEDS, Standard Celeration Chart
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