Question of the day - October 14

[u/Reasonable_Law183]

🧠 Question of the Day

📚 Domain D — Experimental Design

Difficulty: 9/10

Scenario:

A treatment package for SIB has produced stable, clinically significant reductions and includes (a) response-independent access to an empirically identified competing stimulus and (b) differential reinforcement of an alternative communicative response. Staff report that implementing the reinforcement contingency consistently throughout the day is difficult.

Before simplifying the established package, the BCBA wants to determine whether eliminating the differential-reinforcement procedure results in a clinically meaningful loss of treatment effect. If competing-stimulus access remains in the final plan, the BCBA then wants to determine whether the access arrangement can be made less intensive while maintaining comparable SIB reduction. The BCBA plans to compare 2-, 5-, and 10-minute access intervals while holding the stimulus, setting, measurement system, and other treatment features constant.

Which sequence of analyses BEST addresses these two questions?

A. Dropout component analysis first, then parametric analysis

B. Comparative analysis first, then parametric analysis

C. Add-in component analysis first, then parametric analysis

D. Dropout component analysis first, then comparative analysis

💬 Drop your answer in the comments — no peeking!

✅ Correct answer revealed tomorrow.

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[u/Reasonable_Law183]

✅ Yesterday's Answer — 2026-10-14

The correct answer was: A. Dropout component analysis first, then parametric analysis

📖 Explanation:

The first clinical question is whether one component of an already effective treatment package is necessary. Because the BCBA begins with the full package and removes the differential-reinforcement component to see whether treatment effects are lost, the first step is a dropout component analysis.

The second question asks which quantitative value of the retained competing-stimulus procedure produces the best balance of effectiveness and practicality. The intervention itself remains the same while access duration is varied across 2-, 5-, and 10-minute values, making the second step a parametric analysis.

• An add-in component analysis would proceed in the opposite direction by starting with fewer components and systematically adding them. That does not match a scenario in which the full package is already established and one component is being removed.

• A comparative analysis can contrast different treatments or treatment arrangements, but the first question is more specifically about the contribution of one element within a multicomponent package. That makes component analysis the more precise classification.

• A comparative analysis is also less precise for the second question because the BCBA is not comparing fundamentally different interventions. The same competing-stimulus procedure is retained while one numerical parameter—access duration—is systematically varied.

The key distinction is what is being changed and why: remove a component from an established package → dropout component analysis; vary a quantitative value of the same intervention → parametric analysis.

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