A COMPARISON OF STAFF ACCEPTABILITY OF IMMEDIATE VERSUS DELAYED VERBAL FEEDBACK IN STAFF TRAINING

A growing concern in Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) research is the degree of staff acceptability of OBM procedures. We compared s taff acceptability of immediate versus delayed verbal (spoken) feedbac k within a program designed to train human service personnel how to te ach adaptive skills to people with severe disabilities. In Phase 1, fo llowing classroom-based instruction 16 staff were provided the choice of whether to receive immediate or delayed feedback, or to indicate no feedback preference, prior to receiving on-the-job feedback regarding their client-teaching performance. In Phase 2, 11 staff received both types of feedback following on-the-job observations and then were ask ed to indicate which feedback type they preferred, and which type they would prefer to receive in the future. Results indicated the majority of staff in both phases had a preference for type of feedback (versus no preference for either type) and among staff who expressed a prefer ence, 100% preferred immediate over delayed feedback. Results suggest staff trainers and related supervisory personnel should rely on immedi ate feedback in staff training programs in contrast to delayed feedbac k when staff acceptability is a concern. Future research directions ar e discussed regarding the need to evaluate the generality of these fin dings within other OBM procedural applications, and to determine why s taff appear to prefer immediate over delayed verbal feedback.