Four themes were identified from the interview data. These primary themes were (1) mixed familiarity with preference assessments, (2) limited implementation, (3) general acceptability and reported benefits of procedures, and (4) facilitators and barriers for implementing preference assessments.

Theme 1: Mixed Familiarity with Preference Assessments

Participant familiarity with the term “preference assessment” was mixed. Three participants (Molly, Peyton, and Annie) were not familiar with the term while four participants reported having some level of familiarity with preference assessments though not necessarily through their position as a special education preschool teacher. Specifically, Marie and Belle mentioned that preference assessments were covered during their university coursework while Erin and Sadie learned about preference assessments by working at an applied behavior analysis (ABA) clinic or working with related professionals (e.g., behavior specialists and social workers). For example, Erin, a teacher with over 10 years of teaching experience, stated, “Actually one of them [preference assessment], the first time I was introduced was by a social worker who worked with one of my kids. So yeah, through practice from other professionals.”

Although four participants were familiar with the general term “preference assessments,” most participants were not familiar with specific types of preference assessment procedures. For the free-operant, Erin and Marie had previously heard the term but could not recall how to conduct the procedure. For the single-stimulus, Erin and Marie stated they were familiar with the term. Notably, Annie and Belle stated they were unfamiliar with the single-stimulus term, but, after the researchers described the procedure, they both stated that they have previously observed a school psychologist or speech language pathologist using the procedure. For the paired-stimulus, only Marie was familiar with the procedure. Finally, only Erin and Marie were familiar with the MSWO procedure but after receiving a description of the procedure, Molly also stated that they use this procedure within their classroom.

We found that participants who stated they were familiar with preference assessments were better able to state the purpose for conducting them. The three participants unfamiliar with the procedure either described a different assessment or described a procedure where they observed how students reacted to different items. The four participants familiar with preference assessments mentioned using preference to identify rewards, with three of the four participants (Erin, Marie, and Belle) mentioning the term reinforcement or reinforcer in their responses. For example, Marie, who had degrees in psychology and behavior analysis, answered:

I feel like you can use [preference assessments] to find out what is an incentive, what is a motivator, and to kind of help better direct how to encourage their skills and development. That’s how I see it. I think it works. I like the individualism of it [in] a classroom setting.

As illustrated in Marie’s response, participants who are more familiar with preference assessments may have a deeper understanding of how preference assessments may be used to individualize supports to improve student outcomes.

In terms of conducting the procedures, most participants (n = 5) described conducting observations of their students. Molly described observing how the student reacts in different environments while four participants (Peyton, Erin, Marie, and Sadie) discussed providing choices to students and observing their selection. Annie described a different assessment (Indiana’s ISPROUT learning assessments; Indiana Department of Education, n.d.) and Belle described filling out a checklist based on their knowledge of the student.

Theme 2: Limited Implementation

After participants were given a written description and watched a video of each preference assessment, they were asked whether they currently implemented the procedure and how likely they would be to implement the procedures in their classroom. For all preference assessments, most participants either stated they currently did not use the procedure or only used a similar procedure. Similarly, when asked how likely they would be to use each preference assessment, most participants stated they would implement each procedure only a few times per year or as needed. Annie, who had over 20 years of experience teaching students with moderate and severe levels of need, stated,

[I use the procedure] just kind of as needed with kid behaviors. And I mean, for a lot of this, in my opinion, if you’re doing something formal, you’re doing it so that like you, don’t have to constantly do it. You’re doing it to put something in place…you’re not changing those constantly. You may need to tweak them and hold addendums and stuff like that for that but you’re not going to be doing them all the time.

Annie’s response illustrates how teachers may feel that preference assessments may be a useful tool in certain situations, but as-needed rather than a consistent schedule.

The following section describes how often each teacher reported using and being able to implement each preference assessment. Notably, when asked to rank each preference assessment in terms of feasibility, the free-operant was stated to be the most feasible followed by the paired-stimulus, while the MSWO was listed as one of the least feasible. Molly, Erin, and Annie stated they have not used the free-operant. Peyton, Marie, and Sadie stated using a similar procedure, while only Belle stated using the free-operant. In terms of feasibility, Molly stated that she did not feel it is feasible to implement, while the remaining six participants stated they would use the free-operant either when needed or during specific points in the school year.

For the single-stimulus, Erin, Marie, and Belle stated that they have not used the procedure. Molly, Peyton, and Annie stated having used a similar procedure, while only Sadie stated having used the single-stimulus. In terms of feasibility, two participants (Molly and Erin) stated they would not use or not routinely use the single-stimulus, four participants (Marie, Sadie, Annie, and Belle) stated they would use the procedure a few times per year or as needed, and Peyton stated they would use the procedure routinely. For the paired-stimulus, Marie, Sadie, and Belle stated they had not used the paired-stimulus while Molly, Peyton, Erin, and Annie described having used a similar procedure. In terms of feasibility, Molly stated they could implement the procedure daily, while the remaining participants stated they would implement the procedure as needed or only a few times per year.

For the MSWO, five participants (Peyton, Erin, Marie, Sadie, and Belle) stated that they don’t implement the MSWO. Molly discussed having used a similar procedure during free play. Annie misunderstood how to implement the MSWO but stated she currently implements the procedure. In terms of feasibility, Peyton, Erin, Marie, Sadie, and Belle stated they would implement the procedure only a few times per year or as needed, while Molly stated they would use it daily. Annie did not state how frequently they would use the procedure.

Theme 3: General Acceptability and Reported Benefits of Procedures

When discussing each preference assessment procedure, participants were asked about the acceptability of each procedure. However, some participants referred to the benefits of the procedure rather than the acceptability of the procedure, and thus, a few participants did not have coding related to acceptability. Across all preference assessments, all participants who discussed acceptability stated that the procedure was acceptable, and no participant stated that any procedure was unacceptable to implement in the preschool classroom. Five participants stated that the free-operant was an acceptable procedure, five participants stated that the single-stimulus was an acceptable procedure, four participants stated that the paired-stimulus was an acceptable procedure, and four participants stated that the MSWO was an acceptable procedure. When discussing the acceptability of preference assessments in general, Belle stated,

I think if your goal is to identify reinforcers and they’re relatively effective. Because, like I said in our context, we use them to generate ideas, because sometimes it’s hard to think of specific things that might work. We don’t use them a lot. Just because in our program we don’t rely heavily on extrinsic reinforcers, but we do use them for certain kids.

Although Belle’s response illustrates that they may not rely heavily on preference assessments, they believe that the procedure is acceptable and can be useful when working with certain students.

While discussing benefits, general themes across multiple preference assessments were identified and broadly categorized as (a) data-related benefits, (b) behavior-based benefits, and (c) choice-based benefits. No benefit was mentioned by more than three participants within each preference assessment, but some were discussed across preference assessments. Therefore, we will provide general discussions about the benefits across all preference assessment procedures. Table 3 shows the types of benefits discussed by the teachers based on type and preference assessment.

Table 3 Reported benefits from implementation

For data-related benefits, participants discussed how different preference assessments could help them to identify their students’ preferences and motivations. For each preference assessment at least two participants discussed this type of benefit. Additionally, Marie stated that the free-operant and single-stimulus could help them monitor student preferences over time. The usefulness of the data can be depicted in the following quote from Annie:

I really like it. I think it’s really interesting to have it be like I don’t want to say student driven, but there may be things in there that you never thought that they would like that. They gravitate the most to, even though they have other toys that you would have thought be a bigger motivator to them. So, I like the data collection piece of that.

Annie’s response shows how preference assessments can be used to uncover useful data that may be unexpected.

For behavior-based benefits, participants primarily discussed how preference assessments could aid in relationship-building or desired changes in student behaviors. For example, Sadie described how preference assessments have been an essential tool for behavior management:

Yeah, they’re [preference assessments] integral. They’re really important for my behavior plans. One thing, when the student starts to shut down. I can be like, Okay. Well, remember, this is the things they like to do. So, bring those up and like, do your worksheet. If you want to do this, you do this [task] if you want to do this [reinforcer].

Through their response, Sadie highlighted how they have used preference assessments to motivate students to complete class tasks.

For choice-based benefits, participants discussed how the number of choices or the free selection of choices could be beneficial. Specifically, participants stated that the MSWO would allow for more choice, the single-stimulus and paired-stimulus would not burden students with too many options, and the free-operant allows students with free choice.

Theme 4: Facilitators and Barriers for Implementing Preference Assessments

While discussing feasibility of each preference assessment, participants were asked if there were any factors that may make them more or less likely to implement each procedure. A few participants mentioned facilitators that may make them more likely to implement the preference assessment, but participants primarily discussed barriers that would limit their implementation of each preference assessment. Within each preference assessment, no single facilitator or barrier was mentioned by more than four participants, but a few were discussed across preference assessments. Thus, we will discuss general facilitators and barriers across all preference assessment procedures. A list of the facilitators and barriers discussed by the participants can be found in Tables 4 and 5, respectively.

Table 4 Facilitators for implementationTable 5 Barriers to implementationFacilitators

A few participants discussed factors that may increase their usage of preference assessments. Most facilitators were mentioned only once by a participant; however, there were two notable facilitators. First, environmental arrangement was the only facilitator to be discussed by two participants when discussing the same preference assessments. Both Marie and Belle stated that they may be more likely to use the free-operant because the procedures align with how their classroom is already structured. For example, when explaining why they thought the free-operant was feasible to implement, Belle stated,

It’s just because it’s very integrated into the way our classroom already runs, so you wouldn’t be battling behaviors when you’re trying to do the assessment. You could really just focus on figuring out which things are interesting to them. And if you do enough observations over time, I think it would help with the limitation of sometimes they’re only going to pick one or two, and like the observation period. But if you do it a couple of times, you might be able to get a little bit—a few more options than just that.

Belle’s response highlights how the alignment between the environment and the procedure may make it easier to conduct the assessment. Specifically, Belle stated that her class engages in free choice centers where students explore the toys and activities in the different centers, and she would occasionally jot down what students were engaging with at specific centers. Belle’s current classroom structure and practices share similarities to conducting the free-operant.

Second, three participants discussed the facilitator that a procedure was easy to implement. However, all three participants had brought up this facilitator for a different preference assessment. When discussing the single-stimulus, Peyton stated,

I see it [single one] as something that you don’t even have to have this like ornate kind of plan. You literally can say this afternoon, I’m [going to] pull a couple of students aside, and you, have it, we have enough teachers in the room where I think that one’s easily, will be easily implemented.

Through this quote, Peyton highlights how the simplicity of the procedure may increase her perceived use of the procedure, even if hypothetically.

Barriers

Participants discussed multiple barriers to preference assessments implementation, including classroom-related barriers, student-related barriers, and teacher perceptions. For classroom-related barriers, the most discussed barrier was the time and effort needed to conduct the preference assessments and this barrier was brought up for all preference assessments. This barrier was reported more for the paired-stimulus (n = 4) and MSWO (n = 3). Relatedly, teachers reported having a lack of time, resources, or staff as barriers preventing them from implementing the procedures. Molly shared, “There has to be time set aside for me to do that with them [students], and that means that I have to have more adults in my room that will help watch my kiddos.” Molly’s response not only illustrates how these barriers constrain a teacher’s ability to implement preference assessments but also how these barriers may not occur in isolation.

Student-related barriers included students lacking prerequisite skills, students engaging in challenging behaviors (e.g., tantrums), and the risk of burdening the student with too choices. The theme of students not having prerequisite skills were discussed by Peyton, whose classroom includes students with moderate levels of support needs, and Belle, whose classroom includes students with mild, moderate, and severe levels of support needs. These two teachers noted that some of their students may struggle to select only one option or may be unable to make selections when more than two choices are presented. Additionally, multiple participants discussed difficulties related to challenging behaviors, specifically with the single-stimulus. This concern was described by Peyton, a teacher who teaches 21–25 students with disabilities who have moderate levels of support needs:

The [meltdowns] can be pretty intense…My biggest barrier about switching things if they lose interest. That’s one thing. But for me to just say, Oh, time’s up, if I haven’t given them a warning, you know I’m like, Okay, almost finished. And I show I have a stoplight card, and if I show them the yellow, almost finished, then they know that I’m gonna take it away and give them something else.

Through this response, Peyton describes how the removal of a preferred toy may evoke challenging behaviors and the effort they go through to mitigate the occurrence of challenging behaviors.

Finally, for teacher-related barriers, participants discussed preferences for other methods and doubted the usefulness of the data collected. Notably, participants were skeptical about the data’s usefulness for different preference assessments. For the free-operant, Erin stated they could identify preferences through less structured observations. Peyton also had similar sentiments when discussing the single-stimulus and stated that the data are not useful as she already knows what the student likes. Peyton stated:

I’m not always right. I don’t want to make it sound that way, but I guess I feel like I know what they’re going to pick. So, let’s just cut to the chase and just give them that preferred [item] right away. Because I’m usually trying to prevent a meltdown of some sort, or to keep them at the table to keep them sitting.

Peyton’s statement indicates that some teachers may have some beliefs that they can accurately identify student’s preferences, and as a result, they believe they do not need to conduct preference assessments. For the single-stimulus, Peyton and Belle also discussed concerns about not being able to compare and identify preferences. For the paired-stimulus, Sadie stated that they only need to identify their favorite item and did not need a hierarchy while Belle was unsure about how reliable data would be if participants were making a forced choice. For the MSWO, participants expressed confusion about what type of data and its usefulness because selected items would consistently be removed or moved around. These teacher concerns and confusion indicate that teachers may need more in-depth explanations about why procedures are conducted a specific way (e.g., rotating each item after selection to better identify positional biases).