Setting up Mastery- Transitions

This article describes how to configure Transitions in the Mastery section of a target phase in the Program Builder.  For an introduction, please read the Configuring Mastery (Overview) article first.

This article has three parts:

• What are Transitions 
• Basic Mode
• Advanced Mode

What are Transitions? 

A Transition is an event in which a target moves from one Phase to another (e.g. from Probe to Train), or to a Completed state.  The Transitions subsection of the Mastery section of a Target Phase lets you specify the performance conditions (e.g. "3 successful sessions in a row") under which the target should be eligible to transition out of that Phase. 

Transitions do not happen automatically, but rather, when the system detects that the conditions for a transition have been met during data collection, the user collecting data is presented with a banner to "Tap here to transition".  For example, if the transition criteria is "Transition after 3 successful sessions in a row", and if the past two Session Outcomes were successful, then as soon as the the user inputs the results of a trial which causes the current (third) Session Outcome to be designated as a success (e.g. 100% across 5 trials), then the user would see the following:

Clicking the banner will cause the target to transition. 

Ad Hoc Transitions

Users who have a Role with the permission "Set Target State" can also manually transition a target at any time using the three-dot menu, even if the target's Transition logic does not indicate that a transition is forthcoming.

Transitions appear on the target's progress graph as Phase lines showing the name of the Phase or state being transitioned into:

They also are listed in the Target Session Outcome cards in Session Reports:

Note that the Transitions subsection lets you specify when to transition based on sequences of Session Outcomes, but the determination of the Session Outcome itself (success, failure, or indeterminate) is handled by the Session Outcome subsection which appears above Transitions in the Mastery section.

Basic Mode 

For a behavior tracking target that does not transition, you can leave the setting at the default state: "Target does not transition".

Users can manually transition such targets as needed using ad-hoc transitions as described above (e.g. moving a behavior target to Completed or Inactive when it is no longer needed). 

For targets that do transition (e.g. a skill acquisition target), you can use Basic Mode to specify that a transition should occur after N consecutive successful sessions:

You may edit the number of required sessions by clicking on the number.  

If the success run is met, the user will be prompted to transition the target to the next defined phase in the Phase List (if there is one), or to Completed if there are no subsequent phases.

In Basic Mode, any sessions with indeterminate outcomes are ignored with respect to run streaks.  If you want more control over this, see Ignore Indeterminate Sessions in Advanced mode.

If you need more complex transitions (such as transitioning to a Phase other than the next defined phase in the Phase List, or using criteria other than "N successful sessions in a row") then switch to Advanced mode.

Advanced Mode 

If Basic Mode doesn't meet your needs, you can switch to Advanced Mode, which allows you to define any number of Transition Rules by pressing "+Rule":

Each Rule consists of a sequence of clauses that can be independently edited.  Although the creation of rules in Advanced mode is powerful and complex, the clauses and their various parameters form an English sentence, making the rule easy to read and self-explanatory once you get familiar with their form and syntax.

Destination & Phase Selector Clauses

The first clause is the destination clause that specifies what to transition to if this rule fires:

The destination clause choices are:

• Next Phase - transition to the next phase (below the current one) in the Phase List if one exists; otherwise transition to Inactive.
• Previous Phase - transition to the prior phase (above the current one) in the Phase List if one exists; otherwise transition to Inactive.
• A Specific Phase - transition to a specified Phase type. When this is selected, a phase selector clause will appear to the right of it that lets you specify one of the main phase types (Track, Assess, Train, or Maintain) or a custom sub-type:
  
  
  
  E.g. to transition to a sub-type of Assess called "Probe", you can select "custom (Assess)" and then type the word "Probe" over the word "Assess" in the resulting field:
  
  
  
  
  
• Completed - transition to Completed.  The target will immediately be replaced in data collection by the next target (if one exists). 
• custom (Completed) - transition to a custom Completed type. This is useful if you want to distinguish between different types of Completed targets; e.g. "Completed-Mastered" (mastered in training) vs "Completed-Already Known" (demonstrated as mastered in baseline).  To specify a custom Completed type, choose "custom (Completed)" and then click on the word Custom in the text field and overwrite it:
  
  
  
  
• Suspended - transition to Suspended.  The target will be marked as inactive in the suspended state; this is typically used for targets which are expected to be reintroduced at a later date.
• custom (Suspended) - transition to a custom Suspended type.  Similar to custom (Completed) above.
• Inactive - transition to an Inactive state (neither Completed nor Suspended).  Typically used for targets that are not considered relevant and are not expected to be reintroduced.

"Performance Matters" Clause

The next clause (after the destination clause and a possible phase selector clause) is the "performance matters" clause.  This lets you choose between two options: "based on performance" (in which performance matters) or "after completing N sessions", in which performance doesn't matter:

  

If you switch the "performance matters" clause to "after completing N sessions" (namely: performance is irrelevant), you can edit the number of sessions by clicking on the number, and the transition prompt will be triggered after that many sessions in which data is collected for this target (regardless of the Session Outcomes):

Number of Sessions & Performance Criteria Clauses

If the "performance matters" clause is set to "based on performance", then the clause is rewritten as "when performing", and several more clauses will be present at the end of the rule.  The first of these additional clauses is the "number of sessions performed" clause, which lets you specify how many sessions must be performed for this clause to be applicable.  You can choose between "at least X", "at most X", "between X and Y", or "exactly X":

The next clause is the "subset of sessions required to meet performance criteria" clause, which specifies what subset of the sessions performed must meet the performance criteria that will be defined in the final clause.  Possible choices are "all", "all but N", "any N", or "at least N%":

The next clause is the "all/first/last" clause, which lets you constrain the sessions for which the performance criteria applies to a range of the subset of sessions defined in the previous clause (either the first N, last N, or all).  If "all" is chosen, then the clause is rewritten as just the word "sessions":

 

The final clause is the performance criteria clause, which can be set to succeed, fail, or indeterminate:

You can combine these clauses to create complex and flexible rules.  For example, you can specify that the target should transition to completed when all but 1 of the last 5 sessions succeed: 

"Ignore Indeterminate Sessions" Checkbox

After each rule there is a checkbox to "Ignore indeterminate sessions".  If this checkbox is selected, then only sessions that Succeed or Fail will be counted towards meeting transition criteria.

The importance of the "ignore indeterminate sessions" can be illustrated by an example.  Let's say that the Session Success Criteria is defined to succeed if 4 out of 5 trials succeed, or fail if any 2 trials fail, as follows:

Suppose the child has succeeded on the last two sessions and is one successful session away from mastery.   Now suppose that in the next session, the therapist fails to meet dosage (5 trials) and only conducts 3 trials, all of which Succeed.  Therefore, the target neither succeeds nor fails this session; the outcome is "indeterminate". 

If the "Ignore indeterminate sessions" checkbox is not selected, then the child's run streak of 2 consecutive successful Sessions would be broken, and the child would have to start over from zero.  But if the "Ignore indeterminate sessions" checkbox is selected, then the indeterminate session would not be counted, and so the streak of 2 would remain alive.  If the subsequent session was a success (as depicted above), then the target would be mastered, as long as "Ignore indeterminate sessions" was checked.

Transitioning to Different States (e.g. Baseline)

Sometimes you want to transition to one state or phase using certain criteria, and to a different state or phase using other criteria.  For example, In a Baseline (Assess) phase, you can use two rules to specify that the target should transition to Completed if the session succeeds; it should transition to Train if the session fails:

Adding, Deleting, and Reordering Rules

You can add as many rules as you like using +Rule.  The order of rules matters: the first rule that meets criteria will fire.  Rules can be reordered, cloned or deleted using the 3-dot menu to the left of each rule: