College students engage in high levels of excessive drinking and certain subpopulations of college students, such as members of Greek Letter Organizations (GLOs) report higher levels of excessive alcohol consumptions. Those who report less excessive drinking also report counting their drinks and setting drink limits. However, the effectiveness of these strategies may be improved by the ability to accurately identify and pour standard servings of alcohol, an area in which college students’ knowledge is generally quite poor. Although individual behavioral skills training (BST) has been used to teach college students to accurately pour beer (Hankla et al., 2017), little is known about the effectiveness of BST when taught in a group setting, the setting most commonly used to teach college students accurate pouring, or when used with other alcohol types. Using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline across GLO design, we evaluated the effects of BST on the accuracy of college students’ (n = 10) free-pours into an 18-oz red plastic cup of standard servings of (a) beer when taught in a group setting and (b) liquor when taught in an individual setting. Results indicate that following group BST, all participants provided accurate free-pours of beer, but fewer did so with the untrained generalization cup that differs in shape. Following individual BST, participants free-pours of liquor were variable and most required at least two BST sessions. These results suggest BST can be used to teach pairs of college students to pour standard serving of beer. Future research should further examine the variability observed in individual BST for liquor and further examine generality across vessel shape.

Binge drinking is prevalent among college students and is associated with a number of serious consequences. However, research suggests college students who count drinks and set drink limits are less likely to engage in binge drinking. In order to successfully use these tactics, college students must identify and pour standard servings of alcohol. Unfortunately, college students typically cannot identify or pour standard servings of alcohol. Behavioral Skills Training (BST), comprised of instruction, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback (Miltenberger, 2008), can be used to teach college students to pour standard servings of alcohol (Hankla et al., 2017). If effective, universities might consider incorporating BST into their mandated alcohol education courses. However, because of the time investment required for properly using BST to teach this skill, it is important to examine whether participants demonstrate maintenance of skills over time and generalization across untrained cups. In the current study we used a non-concurrent multiple baseline across participants research design that included generality assessments with two untrained stimuli (cups), different in shape, color, and volume. All three participants poured inaccurately during baseline. Following BST with the first trained cup, all three poured accurately into the trained cup, reproducing results from previous studies (Hankla et al., 2018; Schultz et al., 2019). During follow up, two participants poured accurately in all three cups, and one participant poured accurately in one cup. This suggests, pending further data collection, that the skill of pouring standard servings of beer might maintain over time and generalize across untrained cups.

Self-report methods are often used as the main or only measure of college students' alcohol consumption (e.g., Alfonso, Hall, & Dunn, 2013; White et al., 2003). However, these data are limited because students are rarely able to accurately state or pour the standard serving size for various types of alcohol, rendering the validity of self-report questionable (Midanik, 1982; White et al., 2003). Moreover, students are often required to participate in university alcohol training programs; these programs are generally information-based and rarely contain a skills training component, in which students practice identifying and pouring standard servings of alcohol. Researchers have evaluated the effectiveness of nutrition and alcoholic beverage portion training procedures that make use of practice, measurement aids, and verbal feedback; however, to our knowledge, the effect of stimulus fading on a free pour procedure has not been assessed even though research suggests stimulus fading is an effective training procedure. In the current study we assessed the effects of individualized 1) verbal feedback, 2) superimposition training (i.e., measurement aids), and 3) stimulus fading training on college students' ability to accurately free pour a standard serving of beer into 18 oz training and generalization cups using an ABA and in some cases, an ABACA design. Results suggest that all three types of training are effective in teaching college students to free-pour the standard serving size of beer. Further research is required to evaluate effective individual and group trainings, use of different alcohol types and various sized containers, and maintenance and generalization of the skill over time and across settings.