Behavior intervention plans (BIPs) are essential when teaching students with challenging behaviors. Developing a BIP can provide guidance on how staff can consistently address problematic behavior. You can also identify triggers, and implement proactive and reinforcement based strategies to decrease these behaviors. That is why you need to take data with Google Forms.
One critical component of any successful behavior plan is data collection! Collecting data on behavior can help identify patterns, track progress and lead to data-based decisions on current strategies. Digital data collection can streamline this process and increase efficiency in tracking and sharing data collection.
ABC Data Collection using Google Sheets
Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence (ABC) data collection is a widely used method for collecting data on behavior. It involves identifying the antecedents (triggers) that are occurring prior to problem behaviors. You can identify the specific behavior itself, and the consequences that are frequently occurring following the behavior. ABC data can be useful to identify patterns and potentially identify a function.
Google Sheets is an excellent tool for collecting and analyzing ABC Data! You can easily create a spreadsheet to efficiently track behavior information by creating three column headers (Antecedents, Behaviors, Consequences). List commonly observed potential answers for each column (e,g., Low attention, Demand) and insert a checkbox.
Click here to browse a free ABC Data template in Google Sheets.
How to Collect Data with Google Forms
Google Sheets is an excellent resource when tracking data on a computer or laptop. Data with Google Forms can be a great alternative that is more easily available to pull up on a classroom tablet or iPad. Simply create a new data sheet with Google Forms survey and enter questions for:
- Date/ Time of behavior incident
- What happened right before the behavior
- What type of behavior occurred (e.g., aggression, disruption, etc.)
- What happened right after the behavior occurred.
For each question, enter multiple potential answers in checkbox form. Staff can choose any or all events to best capture the information for each behavior incident. Be sure to define each potential behavior in operational terms so that there is no confusion as to what each behavior definition represents! (This is especially crucial if multiple staff members will be filling out this form).
Once the form is created, share access with all staff who will be collecting data. Have them click the “preview” logo to enter a new instance each time they wish to enter data. Once staff have been consistently entering data for several days or weeks, you can click “Responses” and you can view a summary of each field. Alternatively, you can click “View in Sheets,” and explore your data further and/ or insert a graph.
Click here to browse a free Google Form template for collecting ABC Data.
Frequency Data & Graphs using Google Sheets
Can Google Forms put data in spreadsheet? Once you have collected and analyzed your ABC data to formulate a function-based behavior intervention plan, you will need a way to track progress to determine the plan’s success! Frequency data collection involves tracking the prevalence of a behavior over time.
To collect frequency data in Google Sheets, you can create a table with columns for the date, and frequency of each behavior you are tracking. You can then highlight the columns, and in the toolbar menu, go to Insert > Chart. Using the chart editor box that will pop up, ensure that you have “line graph” selected and that the x-axis is displaying the date, and the y-axis is displaying the frequency of the behavior. You can customize the graph further by adding a chart title, changing fonts and colors, and changing the size of the data points in each series.
Tracking the frequency of target behaviors can help ensure that your behavior intervention plan is successful! Ideally, you will see the frequency of a problem behavior decrease over time. Remember that behavior change often takes time, and just because the frequency does not dramatically decrease initially, this does not mean that the behavior plan is a failure; rather, it is possible that your interventions just need more consistent implementation to impact the learner’s behavior!
Conclusion
Using digital data collection in Google Sheets and Google Forms for behavior intervention plans can simplify the process and increase the accuracy and efficiency of data collection. It also allows for easier analysis of the data, allowing you to quickly identify patterns in behavior and determine the effectiveness of chosen interventions.
Connect with me on Instagram (@BeltransBehaviorBasics). I love to get messages from people who would love to get started with digital data collection!
Read more about digital data collection here!
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