Evaluating the use of teach-back and behavioral skills training to improve employee performance

Widely studied and applied throughout healthcare settings, the teach-back training method has recently garnered attention from researchers within behavior analysis. While data suggest that teach-back is effective in teaching employees new skills, there are few evaluations of how well it maintains performance. Additionally, teach-back and alternative training methods have not been evaluated within the same study. The purpose of this experiment was two-fold: (1) replicate previous experimental work and evaluate the degree to which employees maintain skills over time; and (2) evaluate the use of teach-back and behavioral skills training (BST) to improve employee performance. Results from Study 1 indicated that employees learned new skills following teach-back and maintained the skills above baseline levels one month later. Results from Study 2 demonstrated that both teach-back and BST were effective and efficient training methods. Implications of these findings are discussed and further contextualized alongside measures of methodological acceptability.