Enhancing the impact of quality points in interteaching
Interteaching is a classroom instruction approach based on behavioral principles that offers increased flexibility to instructors. There are several components of interteaching that may contribute to its demonstrated efficacy. In a prior analysis of one of these components, the quality points contingency, no significant difference was reported in student exam scores when quality points were made available. The purpose of the present study was to further evaluate the impact of the quality points component of interteaching, and to enhance the immediacy of feedback provided to students on this contingency via delivery of an answer key upon submission of post-discussion quizzes with the opportunity to review the answer key with their interteaching partner during class. We hypothesized that student quiz scores would be higher when this quality points contingency was in place. An alternating treatments design was employed to compare student performance on post-discussion quizzes during two conditions: quality points vs. no quality points with all other components of interteaching in effect. Eleven undergraduate students enrolled in an introduction to applied behavior analysis course served as participants. Results indicate average quiz performance was higher following class sessions with the quality points contingency. Discussion is focused on the implications of delivering immediate feedback to students during classroom instruction and future directions of interteaching research.