Teaching Graphing Using Enhanced Written Instructions: Does Chunk Size Matter

Abstract

Graphing is an important feature of the field of behavior analysis, not only as a job responsibility of behavioral professionals, but as a visual analysis tool as well. While graphing can be taught using various methods, perhaps self-training methods could prove both effective and efficient due to the self-guided nature of the methods. One effective self-training method for graphing is enhanced written instructions (EWI). While the literature has demonstrated EWI’s effectiveness when training graphing, specific presentations of EWI have not been evaluated. To address this gap in the literature, we compared the graphing accuracy and duration to graph completion of chunked presentations of EWI, and evaluated preference for the two different chunked presentations, using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across five students with various degrees of graphing history. Both chunked presentations were found to be effective, with most participants clearly preferring one presentation over the other.