Psychology/Learn/The PMA method
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Learn · Method
The PMA method: Learn, Observe, Understand, Apply
Four stages, in a fixed order, with the instruments for each and the specific error each one is designed to prevent.
Stage one · Learn
Framing is the cheapest place to fix a study and the most expensive place to get it wrong. A usable question is answerable with data you can actually collect, names a behaviour or a condition rather than a person, and states in advance what would change your mind.
| Unusable question | Usable question |
|---|---|
| Is he disruptive? | How often does calling out during instruction occur, in which periods, and does it differ between the two classrooms? |
| Why is she so anxious? | In which situations does she report intensity above 7, and what conditions were present in the preceding hour? |
| Is this team disengaged? | What proportion of contributions in weekly meetings come from how many of the nine people, and does that change when the agenda is circulated in advance? |
| Does he have a problem with authority? | What is the latency between an instruction and the first response, and does it differ by instruction channel? |
Before you observe anything, write down
- The one question this observation must answer.
- The operational definition: label, includes, excludes, onset and offset.
- The method and the observation window.
- Your prediction — sealed, and read only afterwards.
- What would change your mind.
- Who consented, to what specifically, and how consent can be withdrawn.
Stage two · Observe
Description only. The discipline is simple to state and hard to keep: if a sentence contains a motive, a mood, a trait or a diagnosis that was not itself visible, it is an inference and it belongs in a different column.
- Minimum viable evidence: five sessions, two settings, one method held constant, one agreement check.
- Environment fields are completed before behaviour fields. The order changes what you notice, not merely what you write.
- Strengths are recorded before difficulties — not as a courtesy, but because a plan built without them removes the conditions in which the person performs best.
- Timestamp everything. Cap continuous coding at twenty minutes.
- A second observer covers at least twenty per cent of sessions. Below eighty per cent agreement, stop and rewrite the definition rather than blaming the observer.
Reactivity is data, not contamination
People behave differently when they know they are being watched. Record whether they knew, whether you were inside or outside the activity, and whether this was the first session in a new setting.
Expect the first two sessions in any new setting to differ from the rest. That is a finding about novelty, and it belongs in the record.
Stage three · Understand
Data do not speak. They constrain what can honestly be said. Four questions, in order.
- What is the level?The mean rate or percentage across the baseline sessions — one number, with the range beside it.
- What is the trend?Compare the first three sessions with the last three. Rising, falling, flat, or too variable to say. “Too variable to say” is a legitimate and frequently correct answer.
- Where is it concentrated?Which times, settings, activities and people appear in the dense cells of your scatter grid and your preceding-conditions checklist.
- What competes with this reading?Name at least one alternative explanation for the same numbers, and state what observation would separate the two.
| You may say | You may not say |
|---|---|
| “Across five sessions the mean rate was 0.4 per minute, range 0.1–0.9.” | “The behaviour is frequent.” |
| “Nine of eleven instances followed an unannounced change of activity.” | “Unannounced changes cause the behaviour.” |
| “The pattern appeared in Setting A and not in Setting B.” | “The person cannot manage group settings.” |
| “In my reading, predictability is the strongest available candidate.” | “The cause is a need for predictability.” |
| “These data cannot distinguish fatigue from task difficulty.” | Silence about the limits. |
Stage four · Apply
Act proportionately, and in this order of preference. The order runs from cheapest and most reversible to slowest and most burdensome for the person.
| Order | Action | Why it comes first |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Change the environment. | Cheapest, fastest, reversible, and it places no burden on the person. |
| 2 | Change the demand or the communication channel. | Frequently the actual variable, and frequently mistaken for a person-level problem. |
| 3 | Add a support the person controls. | Builds capacity rather than dependence. |
| 4 | Teach a skill. | Slower, requires consent and motivation, and needs a measure. |
| 5 | Refer. | When the question exceeds your scope, competence or authority. |
One change at a time
Change one condition, hold everything else constant, and keep the same recording method throughout. Five simultaneous changes produce an improvement nobody can attribute and nobody can reproduce.
Take the method with you
Free · Quick Observation Card
The observation stage on two pages, plus a printable tally sheet.
Free download
The complete toolkit
The full method with sixteen printable forms, agreement checks, and a findings statement template.
View the resource
Educational scope. Everything published on PMA Science Psychology is provided for education, study and professional documentation. Nothing here is a diagnostic instrument, a psychometric test, or a substitute for assessment, treatment, supervision or emergency care by a qualified professional.
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