CASE STUDY

Maria Toledo

SPRING 2020
Dr. Heins ~ EDUC 474
 Background Information

 Male, freshman, 16 years old, White, Symphonic Band (lower band), tuba player

 Home life:
o The student is the youngest out of four siblings; one of them is in college and
the other two are also in high school

 Academic and school behaviors:

o The student is in lower level classes, he usually comes shows up late, is a Bs
and Cs student, and typically enjoys disrupting class and others around him

 Social behaviors:
o Seems to have the “too cool for school” mentality/attitude, does not fear or
care for authority, is talkative and disruptive during class, does not keep his
eyes on his music (usually looks around at the ceiling or other students),
seeks attention from students and teacher, only succeeds in distracting two
students next to him
 Statement of Problem/Target Behavior

While there are many off-task behaviors, I am choosing to do the intervention on

just one: taking his eyes off music his during instruction. This includes taking his eyes off

his music to look up at the ceiling for multiple seconds at a time, distracting other peers,

and looking through his backpack during class for no reason. Even if he doesn’t get the

desired attention, he will zone out and not be a part of the class.
 Data Collection

Days Number of Times Behavior Occurred

1 22
2 20
3 24
4 20
5 15
6 8
7 7
8 8
9 6

Baseline Intervention

This data was supposed to be collected over the span of 25 days, but I was only able to
complete 9 days’ worth of data. I decided to document the frequency of the behavior each
day by using tally marks. I used a line graph to represent the data so we could see the
direction in which the trend was going and to provide an easier way to visually see the
information.
 Description of Intervention

I implemented a group contingency where the students were granted seven minutes

of free time at the end of class if everyone was engaged and well behaved. If there was an

unacceptable behavior (i.e. not looking at the music), the amount of free time was docked

by 30 seconds per unacceptable behavior. The ideal behavior was to be looking at the

music, to play when instructed to, and to not distract others (positive or negative). By

making this a group contingency, my hope was to try and decrease the student’s off-task

behavior by making the entire class be affected by his actions. The class has very few

problem students, and they are aware of exactly who the problem students are because of

that. The student also values time on his cellphone, so I thought implementing the chance

to have time to use it at the end of class might increase desired behavior.
 Results and Conclusion

With the data I was able to gather, it is obvious that the intervention was working

and I think we would have continued to see the trend go down even more. The first day

with the intervention was a wake-up call for the student I am doing this case study on. As

he continued to get called out for not being on task, he quickly realized how much his

classmates did not appreciate his behavior, especially because it was affecting their

opportunity at having free time at the end of class. Eventually, he realized it was hurting

him more than he was gaining from misbehaving, so he decreased the amount of times he

misbehaved. Each day, he misbehaved less and less. I think he realized that it’d be better for

him to just take the free time instead of upsetting the rest of the class. I found that by

implementing this intervention, other students who had behavior issues actually decreased

their misbehavior and were better behaved as well.

I was only able to gather 9 days’ worth of data instead of 25, so I did need more time

to complete this. However, I think this would have continued to show positive outcomes.

The student was already showing that he was remaining on task for longer (keeping his

eyes on his music) with a decrease in other unwanted behaviors. If this intervention

stopped working, I would try to implement other strategies. Three other interventions I

would have done are talk to him by himself in the hallway, give him a special responsibility

that only he has if he stays on task, and/or try to give him positive praise when he shows

exemplary behavior. I don’t think his need for attention is greater than his want to be

accepted by others, even if he acts like he doesn’t care about his peers’ judgement. This is

supported by the implementation of a group contingency that forced him to either comply

or have the rest of the class be upset with him.

 If I had more time, not only would I have completed collecting all my data, but I

would have phased out the intervention. I would have done this by having a discussion

with the students and bargaining to decrease the amount of free time little-by-little until

there was little to no free time given at the end of class. I’d try to turn it into a weekly

challenge; seeing how many days per week they could go without a given amount of

misbehaviors and having an in-class party at the end of the semester as a reward. After

doing this intervention for 25 days, my hope would be that they’d be bought into it and that

the phase out would have been successful. The reward of a party would also serve as a

follow up because it is a continual evaluation of the behavior with a reward at the end of

each semester.

If I could do something different or change anything, I would try to do more one-on-

one with the student. Although the group contingency worked, maybe pairing it with

individualized interactions would have made a greater impact. The three interventions

stated above show more individualized approaches I could have take to do this. Overall, I

would say this was proving to be successful, but I wonder if it would have continued to be

that way overtime.