A performance-based lottery to improve residential care and training by institutional staff

Two experiments were conducted on four units of a residential facility for the multiply-handicapped retarded in an attempt to improve daily care and training services. Experiment I compared the effects of two procedures in maintaining the work performance of attendants, using an A-B design on two units. One procedure consisted of implementing specific staff-resident assignments, the other consisted of allowing attendants who had met performance criteria to be eligible for a weekly lottery in which they could win the opportunity to rearrange their days off for the following week. Results showed that the lottery was a more effective procedure as measured by the per cent of time attendants engaged in predefined target behaviors, and by their frequency of task completion in several areas of resident care. Experiment II replicated and extended these results to the area of work quality on two additional units, using a multiple-baseline design. The performance lottery was found to be an effective econimical procedure that could be implemented by supervisory staff on a large scale.