ABA Exam CoachLessons · C. Measurement, Data Display, and Interpretation
C.7 · Measuring efficiency
Two teaching procedures both get your learner to mastery, so it's a tie, right? Not quite. Today we're asking what it cost to get there: how many trials, how many minutes, how many dollars.
Key takeaway
Efficiency measures look at how much it took to reach a behavior change, not just whether it happened. Common ones are trials to criterion, sessions to criterion, total training time, and cost analyses. A comparison is only fair if every condition uses the same mastery criterion, comparable targets, and the same unit, such as total minutes rather than session counts. Fast acquisition still has to hold up, so check maintenance and generalization too.
Efficiency measures look at how much it took to reach a behavior change, not just whether it happened. Common ones are trials to criterion, sessions to criterion, total training time, and cost analyses. A comparison is only fair if every condition uses the same mastery criterion, comparable targets, and the same unit, such as total minutes rather than session counts. Fast acquisition still has to hold up, so check maintenance and generalization too.
Members get the full lesson video, notes and a 5-question test
The video walks through the idea, worked examples, the trap people fall into and an exam-style question. The notes and the checkpoint come with it, and your results feed your Where to focus plan.