The effects of an avoidance contingency on postsecondary student SAFMEDS performance

The current research investigated the effects of an avoidance contingency on the curriculum-based measures of three university students. Contemporary teaching practices in higher education promote the development of higher order skills, which are often contrasted with memorization. However, there is little empirical evidence to support educational practices at the university level. Three students in an introductory applied behavior analysis course participated in this project. Each class day throughout the semester, the participants took part in both a 1-min fluency drill and a daily quiz over the assigned readings. During baseline, these activities were independent of each other. The intervention consisted of making the quiz contingent on each student’s fluency score. The number of vocabulary words identified by each participant increased after the avoidance contingency was applied, indicating that the prevention of daily quizzes served as a negative reinforcer to increase studying. Implications for the use and frequency of assessments in higher education are discussed.