What are some simple data collection techniques I can use in my kindergarten classroom?

Question

I am on an IAT coaching team. We are developing a list of ideas for the teachers in our all kindergarten building to use when collecting data on student behaviors. I have looked everywhere and I have only been able to find about three techniques including placing a piece of masking tape on your leg and tally marking everytime you observe the behavior, moving paperclips from one pocket to the other and using a counter to record the number of times the behavior happens. I am sure that there are more, however, I have been unable to locate any additional ideas. I would greatly appreciate the advice of other teachers. Any websites or book recommendations would be outstanding. Thank you so much in advance.

Answer 1

You have to consider the type of data that you are collecting. The techniques that you describe are for event recording, in other words the behavior has a discrete beginning and ending in a short period of time, such as throwing a paper clip or calling out. You can count these using the methods that you describe.

However, what if you are trying to "count" behaviors such as off task or talking with peers? A child may talk with peers for 3 minutes, but it will only be counted as 1, which isn't really accurate. Being off task for 5 minutes has a great deal more impact on learning than does throwing a paperclip for 1 second. These behaviors are duration behaviors and need to be timed.

Be sure you describe the exact behavior that you will be counting or timing, otherwise you data may  not be relevant. Define the behavior in observable, measurable terms. "Calls out" or "Talks with peers" would be examples of this. Also, emotions are not behavior, so don't use words like "gets upset." That can mean different things to different people, so try to avoid this in favor of describing behavior.

If you decide to time a behavior, simply write down the time it starts and when it ends. Another method of counting events is to use a scatter plot, which lets you see the strength of the behavior over a period of time.

Answer 2

www.specialconnections.ku.edu.

If you look under Behavior planning

Functional Behavior Assessment

Teacher Tools.

They give you specific examples for collecting data including a Scatter Plot, ABC chart and other ideas.

You may also want to talk about different types of data collection: frequency/ event recording, duration (latency) and time sampling to give a range of the type of data that can be collected. An introductory text to Behavior Analysis gives a lot of great data collection ideas also. Applied Behavior Analysis for Teachers published by Prentice Hall is a great resource.

I hope these are helpful :)

A couple more websites.

http://www.usu.edu/teachall/text/behavio...

www.pent.ca.gov/07BehaviorPlanning/aFu...

http://education.umn.edu/ceed/projects/p...

Answer 3

One method is to have form consisting of a seating chart with a numbered square for each child's name and room to tally a different behavior in each corner of the square. Using a fresh dated chart for each day or even half day you can gather plus and minus notes for each child in four chosen behaviors each day  Plus equals a observation of on task behavior while a simple minus or an observation of ABC or d would all indicate severity's of problem behavior if there was a number it would indicate a specific problem with that specific child which could be explained at the bottom or on the back of the page. To keep from having to carry this chart around the room the teacher could use sticky notes to supplement his or her data chart.

Pennies and nickles could be used in the same way as the paper clips to observe on task and off task on single child interval data gathering.

Answer 4

You can also take interval data, either partial or whole. This would be for behaviors that occur frequently or for "time-based" behaviors (e.g., tantrums).

First, divide your intervals across your day appropriately (e.g, 1/2 hour intervals). For partial interval, you would score a yes if the behavior occurred at all during that interval. For example, if someone was tantrumming for 5 minutes within that 30-minute period, you would score a yes for that interval.

Whole interval, you would score a yes for that interval only if the behavior persisted throughout the entire interval... may be good for tantrums, stimming, or off-task behavior.

Advantages to both are that they do not require continous data collection... only at the end of the interval (or one time). Also, they are good for measuring behaviors that do not have a clear beginning or end.

In data collection, you need to look at the behavior individually. For example, if you are targeting aggression, you may want to take frequency data if it is a huge concern. Then, you might only have to collect data for 2-3 days, but it would be more intense...

Just make up data sheets and have them ready for the aides...