Effects of explicit timing on mathematics problem completion rates in African-American third-grade elementary students

A multiple baseline design was used to evaluate the effects of Van Houten a nd Thompson's (1976) explicit timing procedure on problem completion rates and accuracy levels in African-American third-grade students. During the ex plicit timing phase, students were told that they were being timed and were instructed to circle the last problem completed at each 1-min interval. Re sults showed that the explicit timing procedure increased problem completio n rates. A decreasing trend in percentage of problems correct also occurred . Exploratory data analysis suggested that decreases in accuracy were not c aused by the explicit timing procedure and did not occur in students who ha d attained high levels of preintervention accuracy. Discussion focuses on r ecommendations for educators who wish to use timing procedures to increase students' rates of accurate responding.