Association for Behavior Analysis International

In 2016, there were approximately 2.9 million injuries and 5,190 workplace fatalities in the U.S. private sector (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). The business use of data analytics is growing (Davenport, Harris, & Morison, 2010) and is beginning to be applied to injury prevention (Wagner, 2014) for the detection of behavioral precursors associated with injuries and other safety outcomes. Data analytics in conjunction with behavioral safety observations (Cooper, 2006) and other data sources are used in this study to create a descriptive model to guide the behavior analyst in pinpointing, informed intervention design, and program evaluation through this multiyear study. This study identifies behavioral covariates of leading and lagging safety variables within databases from four divisions of a Fortune 500 chemical manufacturer, each with different manifestations of behavioral safety. Results relating specific at-risk behavioral trends with behaviors associated with safety management system participation and operational tasks (e.g., overtime work) as they relate to meaningful safety outcome (e.g., injury) data will be presented.

The Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM) is the flagship journal for the growing field of Organizational Behavior Management (OBM). A number of researchers have contributed to the knowledge base in the field across the past forty years. The purpose of the current article was to identify the most prolific authors in JOBM. Articles that were either editorials or book reviews were excluded from the study. A total of 638 peer-reviewed studies published in JOBM were coded. The top 10 most prolific authors in JOBM were identified by decade and overall. The top 10 institutions were identified across all years. Additionally, representation by women was evaluated over time.

This study examined the effect of BBS coaching program on workers’ safety behaviors in three sawmilling site. One or two managers and about twelve workers at each site participated in this study. BBS coaching for manager consisted of safety leadership education, safety observation and feedback on workers’ safety behavior, low-cost reward for safety observation. Dependent variables were the percentage of workers’ safe behaviors. Critical behavior checklist developed for measuring safety behaviors trough Sulzer-Azaroff and Fellner (1984)’s process. A nonconcurrent AB multiple baseline design across settings was adopted. After baseline (A), BBS coaching program (B) was introduced to each site. The results showed that BBS coaching was effective to increase workers’ safety behaviors. These results suggest that BBS coaching would be an alternative treatment technique to improve safety management of small sawmilling site.

This study compared the effects of accurate (i.e., contingent) and inaccurate (i.e., non-contingent) feedback on work performance under two different work conditions. One hundred twenty participants were randomly assigned to the four experimental conditions and asked to perform a simulated work task. Under one work condition, participants could clearly see the outcome of their performance (i.e., conspicuous condition). Under the other condition, they could not clearly see the outcome of their performance (i.e., inconspicuous condition). The results indicated that accurate feedback was more effective than inaccurate feedback under the conspicuous condition, but the two types of feedback produced comparable effects under the inconspicuous condition.

Statistical analyses for single-case studies have been proposed for common reversal, multiple-baseline, and changing criterion designs (e.g., Collini and Huitema, 2018; Huitema, 2011, 2018). It is not unusual, however, to encounter embellished versions of the most common designs as well as less frequently applied designs; existing analyses do not apply to these designs. The motivation for the embellishments is usually to increase the internal validity of the experiment. The changing criterion design, for example, can be easily modified to strengthen the evidence for an intervention effect by incorporating one or more reversal phases. This is a good idea if the study is not likely to be harmed by introducing a temporary change of conditions to those that had been in place during an earlier phase of the study. The method proposed in this presentation applies to changing criterion designs that include at least one reversal phase. The statistical analysis provides (1) overall measures of behavior change related to criterion changes, (2) individual measures of change associated with each phase change, and (3) measures of the effect of the reversal conditions. Statistical inference (i.e., hypothesis tests and confidence intervals) are described for each of these three types of descriptive measure.