In this presentation, Shauna Diffley shares her research on the social validity of teacher-implemented Precision Teaching. Shauna is highly knowledgeable in this area, and her insights offer valuable learning opportunities for all of us.

Social validity is core to the effective provision of behaviour analytic services (Wolf, 1987); however, research in this area remains limited. In a review of Precision Teaching (PT) for the improvement of academic skills, McTiernan et al. (2021) found that only 36% (n = 10) of reviewed papers reported social validity outcomes, with only two of these studies involving teacher-implemented PT. Qualitative methods offer one approach to explore social validity in PT (Griffin & Murtagh, 2015; Owen et al., 2021). This study employs qualitative methods to explore teachers’ and students’ experiences of frequency-building with PT to achieve fluency with math facts. Five teachers and 96 students from mainstream disadvantaged schools in Ireland participated in the study. Five individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers and 16 focus groups with students. The interview guides were developed based on the core components of social validity (a) the social significance of goals, (b) the social appropriateness of procedures and (c) the social importance of the effects (Wolf, 1987) and the theoretical framework of acceptability questionnaire (Sekhon et al., 2017). Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Implications of the findings for research and practice will be discussed.

A CPD cert for watching this video and answering the associated questions is available here

Publications

Diffley, S., Kubina, R.M., Noone, C., Quinlivan, S., & Mc Tiernan, A., (2025). The Complexity of Procedural Fidelity in Precision Teaching: A Qualitative Analysis. Behav Analysis Practice https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-025-01050-3

Diffley, S. and McTiernan, A. (2024), “Commentary on “Looking towards the future: the potential of Precision Teaching in the work of the educational psychologist in Ireland”. Considerations when using Precision Teaching to support students with complex learning needs”, Tizard Learning Disability Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/TLDR-07-2024-0029

McTiernan, A., Diffley, S., Ryan, A., Quinlivan, S., Neufeld, J., O’Regan, D., & Healy, O. (2023) Assistive and Consumer Products for Supplementary Reading Instruction for children with Disabilities:  Current Status & Potential for Application in Practice. National Disability Authority Ireland. https://nda.ie/publications/assistive-technology-for-supplementary-reading-instruction-for-children-with-disabilities#

McTiernan, A., McCoy, A., Mendonca, J., Lydon, H., & Diffley, S. (2022). The implementation of Precision Teaching for the improvement of academic skills: A systematic review of the literature over thirty years. Behavioral Interventions, 37(2), 505–528. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.1852