Previous research has demonstrated that Number Heads Together (NHT), a peer-mediated intervention, is more effective than the traditional teacher-led instruction in academic areas such as language arts, social studies, and science. The current study compared the effects of two NHT strategies during a middle school math lesson. Four middle school students with emotional behavioral disorders participated in the study. An alternating treatment design was used to determine the effectiveness of NHT upon the participating students’ on-task behavior, total percentage of quiz scores, correct answer percentage on administrated quizzes, and accurate completion percentage of multiplication algorithms.
The current study extended the previous studies through the incorporation of a preference stimulus assessment to determine the effectiveness of Number Heads Together +Incentives (NHT+I) and included the participating students’ Woodcock Johnson III math (WJ-III) computation scores to determine and develop the pre-test and post-test.
Results of this study suggest that Number Heads Together + Incentives is a more effective intervention than NHT without the Incentives in terms of increasing on-task percentage and academic quiz scores. Results from this study replicates and extend which authors found for similar on-task behavior and academic quiz scores. Social validity assessments for the participating teacher and students are included with the results. Future research should compare the effects of NHT and NHT+I for students with EBD in a full inclusive environment and in a different academic content area such as social studies. A discussion on study limitations, implications, and future research directions is included.