BCBA Exam (Board Certified Behavior Analyst) — All Questions

A clinician first records when a child's tantrums occur, then finds they are most frequent at transitions, and finally shows that tantrums fall each time a visual transition warning is introduced and rise when it is withdrawn. The final step reaches which level of scientific understanding?

• a.Replication
• b.Experimental control✓
• c.Systematic description
• d.Prediction

The BCBA Test Content Outline names description, prediction and control as the goals of the science. Systematic observation is description, and noticing that tantrums co-vary with transitions is prediction (a correlation). Only manipulating the warning and seeing behavior change each time demonstrates control, a functional relation. Replication strengthens a finding but is not one of the three levels.

A team is asked why a student hits peers. Before proposing an inner 'anger drive', the behavior analyst checks whether simple, already-demonstrated environmental variables such as peer attention account for the hitting. Which philosophical assumption is guiding this step?

• a.Determinism
• b.Pragmatism
• c.Selectionism
• d.Parsimony✓

Parsimony means ruling out the simplest, already-established explanations before considering more complex or hypothetical ones, which is exactly what checking peer attention before an inner drive does. Determinism is the assumption that behavior is lawful and caused; selectionism concerns variation and selection by consequences; pragmatism judges ideas by their practical outcomes. The outline lists all four as assumptions, but only parsimony describes this ordering of explanations.

Skinner described operant behavior as being shaped over an individual's lifetime by its consequences, in a way analogous to how natural selection shapes species. This view is called

• a.empiricism
• b.determinism
• c.parsimony
• d.selectionism✓

Skinner's 'Selection by consequences' (1981) placed operant conditioning alongside natural selection and cultural evolution as selection processes, the assumption called selectionism. Empiricism is reliance on objective observation, determinism is the assumption that events are lawful, and parsimony is preferring the simplest adequate explanation; none of them describes variation plus selection.

Which statement is consistent with Skinner's radical behaviorism?

• a.Thinking and feeling cannot be studied and must be left out of a science of behavior
• b.Only behavior that two independent observers can see qualifies as behavior
• c.Thinking and feeling are behavior, controlled like public behavior✓
• d.Thinking and feeling are inner causes that initiate a person's public behavior

Radical behaviorism treats private events such as thinking and feeling as behavior that is subject to the same controlling variables as public behavior (Skinner, 1945; 1974). Excluding them because they cannot be publicly observed is the position of methodological behaviorism, which the requirement of two independent observers also reflects. Treating thoughts as the initiating causes of behavior is mentalism, which radical behaviorism rejects.

A journal article describes a treatment in enough detail that a trained reader could replicate it from the written description alone. Which of Baer, Wolf, and Risley's dimensions of applied behavior analysis does this satisfy?

• a.Technological✓
• b.Conceptually systematic
• c.Analytic
• d.Generality

Baer, Wolf and Risley (1968) called a study technological when its procedures are identified and described completely enough for replication. Conceptually systematic means procedures are tied to basic principles, analytic means a believable demonstration of the events responsible for change, and generality means the change lasts over time or spreads to other settings and behaviors.

A report shows that a client's self-injury dropped to near zero after treatment, but no experimental design was used to show that the treatment, rather than something else, produced the change. Which dimension of applied behavior analysis is missing?

• a.Behavioral
• b.Analytic✓
• c.Effective
• d.Applied

Baer, Wolf and Risley (1968) defined analytic as a believable demonstration of the events responsible for the behavior change, which requires experimental control. The target was socially important (applied), was measured behavior (behavioral), and changed meaningfully (effective); what is missing is evidence that the treatment was responsible.

Hair pulling, table slapping, and throwing toys all reliably produce adult attention for a child. Responses that differ in form but share the same effect on the environment are best described as

• a.a functional response class✓
• b.a behavior chain
• c.a single response topography
• d.a stimulus class

A response class is a set of responses grouped by a shared effect or function, here producing attention, even though their topographies differ. A stimulus class groups stimuli, not responses. A behavior chain is a sequence in which each response produces the cue for the next, and a single topography would require the responses to share one form, which these do not.

After several painful injections given by staff wearing white coats, a child starts to cry and tremble at the sight of anyone in a white coat. The crying at the sight of a white coat is best explained by

• a.operant extinction
• b.negative punishment
• c.positive reinforcement
• d.respondent conditioning✓

The white coat was repeatedly paired with a painful unconditioned stimulus and now elicits an emotional response on its own, which is respondent (Pavlovian) conditioning. No consequence is following the crying, so positive reinforcement and negative punishment do not apply, and operant extinction would be withholding a reinforcer for a previously reinforced response.

Whenever a student puts her head on the desk during math, the teacher takes the math worksheet away. Head-down behavior during math becomes more frequent. This is an example of

• a.positive punishment
• b.negative punishment
• c.negative reinforcement✓
• d.positive reinforcement

The response (head down) is followed by removal of a stimulus (the worksheet), and the response increases in future frequency: negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement would add a stimulus. Punishment of either kind would decrease the behavior, and here it increased.

A teen loses phone access for the rest of the day each time he swears at his parents, and swearing becomes less frequent. Which contingency is operating?

• a.Negative reinforcement
• b.Negative punishment✓
• c.Positive punishment
• d.Extinction

Removal of a stimulus (phone access) contingent on the response, followed by a decrease in the response, is negative punishment. Positive punishment adds a stimulus. Negative reinforcement increases behavior. Extinction means withholding the reinforcer that had maintained swearing, not taking away an unrelated privilege.

A child's hand flapping occurs at the same high rate when he is alone, when adults ignore it, and when adults comment on it. Which contingency most likely maintains it?

• a.Access to tangible items delivered by others
• b.Automatic reinforcement✓
• c.Socially mediated attention from adults
• d.Socially mediated escape from demands

The TCO distinguishes automatic from socially mediated contingencies. Behavior that persists when the person is alone and does not change with adult reactions is not depending on anything another person delivers, which points to automatic reinforcement. Attention, escape and tangible contingencies all require another person to deliver or remove something, and the pattern shows no sensitivity to those.

A worker is paid after completing an unpredictable number of assembled units that averages 10 per payment. This is which schedule of reinforcement?

• a.Fixed interval 10
• b.Variable interval 10
• c.Fixed ratio 10
• d.Variable ratio 10✓

Reinforcement based on a number of responses is a ratio schedule; when that number varies around an average it is a variable ratio, here VR 10. Fixed ratio 10 would require exactly 10 units every time. Interval schedules depend on the passage of time before a response is reinforced, not on a count of responses.

During a session, a key light is red while a fixed-ratio 5 schedule is in effect and green while a fixed-interval 30-s schedule is in effect. The two components alternate, and each produces food on its own. This arrangement is a

• a.multiple schedule✓
• b.mixed schedule
• c.chained schedule
• d.concurrent schedule

A multiple schedule alternates two or more components, each correlated with its own stimulus and each producing primary reinforcement. A mixed schedule is the same arrangement without distinct stimuli. In a chained schedule, completing one component produces the stimulus for the next and only the final link ends in primary reinforcement. Concurrent schedules are available at the same time, not in alternation.

A student raises his hand only when Ms. Lee is teaching, because Ms. Lee calls on raised hands and the substitute does not. For hand raising, Ms. Lee's presence functions as

• a.an establishing operation
• b.a discriminative stimulus✓
• c.a conditioned punisher
• d.an unconditioned stimulus

A discriminative stimulus is present when a response has been reinforced and absent when it has not, and it comes to evoke the response. Ms. Lee's presence signals that hand raising will be reinforced. An establishing operation changes the value of a reinforcer rather than signalling its availability; an unconditioned stimulus elicits respondent behavior; a conditioned punisher would decrease hand raising.

After being taught to say 'hi' when greeting her teacher, a girl also begins to say 'hello' and 'hey there' to the teacher, although only 'hi' was taught. This is

• a.respondent conditioning
• b.stimulus generalization
• c.stimulus discrimination
• d.response generalization✓

New, untrained response forms occurring under the same stimulus conditions are response generalization. Stimulus generalization would be the trained response ('hi') occurring to new stimuli such as other adults. Discrimination is responding differently to different stimuli, and respondent conditioning concerns elicited, not operant, behavior.

Which statement best distinguishes a motivating operation from a discriminative stimulus?

• a.An MO signals a consequence's availability; an SD alters its value
• b.An MO follows a response; an SD is delivered after the reinforcer
• c.An MO alters a consequence's value; an SD signals its availability✓
• d.An MO affects only respondent behavior; an SD affects only operant behavior

Michael (1982) separated the two functions: a motivating operation alters the reinforcing effectiveness of a consequence, while a discriminative stimulus is correlated with the differential availability of that consequence. The reversed statement swaps the definitions. Both operate on operant behavior, and both are antecedent variables, so describing either as following the response or the reinforcer is incorrect.

A new employee puts on gloves before handling food on her very first shift, having read the sign 'Wear gloves when handling food', although she has never contacted any consequence for doing so. Her glove wearing is best described as

• a.respondent behavior
• b.an echoic
• c.rule-governed behavior✓
• d.contingency-shaped behavior

Behavior controlled by a verbal description of a contingency, before the person has contacted the contingency itself, is rule-governed. Contingency-shaped behavior is established by direct contact with consequences, which has not happened yet. Glove wearing is not elicited like a respondent, and it is not a vocal repetition of someone else's speech, as an echoic would be.

A thirsty child with no juice in sight says 'juice' and is given juice. According to Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior, this response is

• a.an intraverbal
• b.a tact
• c.an echoic
• d.a mand✓

A mand is a verbal operant under the control of a motivating operation and reinforced by the specific consequence it specifies. Here thirst controls the response and juice reinforces it. A tact is controlled by a nonverbal stimulus in view; an intraverbal by a preceding verbal stimulus without point-to-point correspondence; an echoic by a vocal model with point-to-point correspondence.

A thirsty child sees a glass of juice on the table and says 'juice'. The response is evoked both by thirst and by the sight of the juice. It is best described as

• a.a pure tact controlled by the juice
• b.an echoic controlled by a vocal model
• c.an autoclitic modifying a mand
• d.a response under multiple control✓

Skinner described verbal responses as often having more than one controlling variable. Here a motivating operation (thirst) and a nonverbal stimulus (the juice) both evoke the word, so it is a mixed mand-tact under multiple control. Calling it a pure tact ignores the motivating operation; there is no vocal model for an echoic; and an autoclitic is verbal behavior about one's own verbal behavior.

A learner is taught to match spoken words to pictures (A to B) and pictures to printed words (B to C). Without further training, she now matches printed words to the corresponding spoken words (C to A). This untrained performance demonstrates

• a.symmetry only
• b.stimulus equivalence✓
• c.reflexivity only
• d.generalization

Sidman and Tailby (1982) define equivalence by reflexivity, symmetry and transitivity. A C-to-A relation after A-to-B and B-to-C training requires both symmetry and transitivity combined, the classic equivalence test. Reflexivity is matching a stimulus to itself; symmetry alone would be B-to-A or C-to-B; generalization is responding to physically similar stimuli, which spoken and printed words are not.

According to behavioral momentum theory, a response's resistance to change in a stimulus context is determined mainly by

• a.the delay between each response and its reinforcer
• b.the number of prompts used in that context
• c.the rate of reinforcement in that context✓
• d.the rate of responding in that context

Nevin's work showed that resistance to change depends on the rate of reinforcement correlated with the stimulus context (the Pavlovian stimulus-reinforcer relation), not on the response rate the schedule maintains. A high response rate does not by itself make a response persistent. Prompt count and reinforcer delay are not the variables the theory identifies.

On two concurrent variable-interval schedules, alternative A produces 30 reinforcers per hour and alternative B produces 10 per hour. Strict matching predicts what proportion of responses will be allocated to A?

• a.75%✓
• b.50%
• c.25%
• d.67%

Herrnstein's matching law states that the relative rate of responding matches the relative rate of reinforcement. A's share of reinforcement is 30 / (30 + 10) = 30/40 = 0.75, so 75% of responses are predicted on A. 25% is B's share, 50% would ignore the difference, and 67% does not correspond to the stated rates.

Which feature distinguishes imitation from a response that simply happens to look like someone else's behavior?

• a.The response differs in form from the modeled behavior
• b.The imitator is reinforced by the person who modeled it
• c.The response occurs at least a day after the model
• d.The model's behavior evokes the response✓

In the behavior-analytic definition, imitation requires that the model's behavior evoke the response, with formal similarity and close temporal relation; a coincidental resemblance lacks that controlling relation. Reinforcement by the model is not required, as generalized imitation of unreinforced models shows. A long delay and a different form are the opposite of the defining features.

Which is the best operational definition of hitting for a behavior plan?

• a.Acting out physically in the classroom
• b.Showing anger physically when a request is denied
• c.Striking a person with an open or closed hand✓
• d.Being aggressive toward peers during free play

An operational definition describes the observable topography of the behavior so that two observers can agree on each occurrence. Striking a person with an open or closed hand is observable and countable. Being aggressive, showing anger and acting out are labels or inferred states; observers could disagree about what counts, so they are not operational definitions.

A teacher counts the number of correctly completed math worksheets left in a student's tray at the end of each day. This is

• a.a permanent-product measure✓
• b.a discontinuous measure
• c.an indirect measure
• d.an interobserver agreement measure

Measuring the lasting outcome a behavior leaves in the environment, here completed worksheets, is a permanent-product (product) measure, one of the three types the TCO distinguishes from direct and indirect measures. Indirect measures rely on reports such as interviews or rating scales. Discontinuous measures sample behavior during observation intervals, and interobserver agreement compares two observers rather than measuring behavior.

During a 30-minute observation, a student calls out 18 times. What is the rate of calling out?

• a.6 per minute
• b.0.06 per minute
• c.0.6 per minute✓
• d.1.67 per minute

Rate is count divided by observation time: 18 responses / 30 minutes = 0.6 responses per minute (check: 0.6 x 30 = 18). 1.67 is the inverted ratio (30/18). 6 and 0.06 misplace the decimal point.

A feeding therapist wants to know whether a child is eating too fast, so she records the time between two successive bites. She is measuring

• a.interresponse time✓
• b.response latency
• c.rate per session
• d.episode duration

Interresponse time (IRT) is the time elapsed between two successive responses, which captures how closely bites follow one another. Latency is measured from a stimulus to a response, not between responses. Duration is how long a single response lasts, and rate per session is a count over time that does not show the spacing between individual bites.

In whole-interval recording, an interval is scored only if the behavior occurs throughout the entire interval. Compared with the true proportion of time the behavior occurred, this method tends to

• a.underestimate it✓
• b.match it exactly
• c.double it
• d.overestimate it

Because any interval with even a brief gap in the behavior is scored as a non-occurrence, whole-interval recording can only miss behavior, never add it, so it tends to underestimate total duration. Partial-interval recording, which scores an interval if the behavior occurs at any point, is the method that tends to overestimate. Neither method matches the true value exactly except by chance, and nothing about the rule produces a doubling.

A teacher of 22 students wants to check on-task behavior without stopping instruction. A vibrating timer prompts her every 5 minutes, and she notes whether each target student is on task at that instant. This is

• a.momentary time sampling✓
• b.event recording
• c.partial-interval recording
• d.whole-interval recording

Recording whether the behavior is occurring at the moment an interval ends is momentary time sampling, which suits observers who cannot watch continuously. Partial- and whole-interval recording require watching throughout each interval. Event recording counts every occurrence, which is not possible while teaching a full class.

Two observers count a student's call-outs in the same session. Observer 1 records 16 and Observer 2 records 20. What is the total count IOA?

• a.125%
• b.80%✓
• c.90%
• d.20%

Total count IOA divides the smaller count by the larger and multiplies by 100: 16 / 20 = 0.80, so 80% (check: 20 x 0.8 = 16). Dividing the larger by the smaller gives 125%, which is not possible for an agreement index. 20% is the disagreement, and 90% has no basis in these counts.

A family's concern is how long a child's tantrums last, but staff record only how many tantrums occur each day. The main problem with this measurement is its

• a.sensitivity to rate
• b.reliability
• c.interobserver agreement
• d.validity✓

A measure is valid when it captures the dimension of behavior relevant to the question. Counting tantrums can be perfectly consistent (reliable) and have high agreement between observers while still missing the dimension of concern, duration. A count already is sensitive to rate, which is not the issue.

On a cumulative record, a flat horizontal segment indicates that during that period

• a.the reinforcer was delivered
• b.responding was at its highest rate
• c.no responses occurred✓
• d.responding declined to half its rate

A cumulative record adds each response to the running total, so the slope shows response rate. A flat segment means the total did not increase, that is, no responses occurred. The highest rate appears as the steepest slope, and a decrease in rate appears as a shallower but still rising slope, because a cumulative record cannot go down.

A BCBA plans to start an intervention, but the baseline data points vary widely from session to session with no clear pattern. The best next step is to

• a.average the baseline points and start treatment
• b.extend baseline until a stable pattern emerges✓
• c.switch to comparing the means of two groups
• d.start treatment now to reduce the variability

Single-case logic depends on a stable baseline that allows prediction of future behavior; with high variability, a treatment effect cannot be distinguished from ongoing fluctuation. Starting treatment immediately, or averaging the points, hides the variability instead of resolving it. Group means do not address the problem of predicting this individual's behavior.

A consultant needs to show a school board the average rate of problem behavior in each of four separate conditions from a completed study, as one summary figure. Which graph best suits this purpose?

• a.A cumulative record
• b.A bar graph✓
• c.A scatterplot of sessions by time
• d.An equal-interval line graph of sessions

Bar graphs display discrete, separate categories and summary values such as means per condition, which is the stated purpose. A cumulative record and a session-by-session line graph show change over time, which is valuable for ongoing decisions but is not a summary of four conditions. A scatterplot shows the relation between variables or the timing of responses.

In a study of whether a token system increases homework completion, the token system is the

• a.baseline condition
• b.dependent variable
• c.independent variable✓
• d.confounding variable

The independent variable is what the experimenter manipulates to see its effect, here the token system. Homework completion, the measure that may change, is the dependent variable. A confounding variable is an uncontrolled factor that could explain the result, and baseline is the condition without the token system.

A reading intervention produced a clear effect for three second-graders in one school. A reviewer asks whether it would work for older students in other schools. This question concerns

• a.treatment integrity
• b.external validity✓
• c.interobserver agreement
• d.internal validity

External validity is the extent to which a functional relation holds across other participants, settings and behaviors, which is what the reviewer asks. Internal validity concerns whether the independent variable, rather than something else, produced the change in the original study. Interobserver agreement and treatment integrity concern measurement of behavior and implementation, not generality.

A toddler's spoken vocabulary grows steadily over the six months of a language intervention. Which threat to internal validity most plausibly competes with the intervention as an explanation?

• a.Regression to the mean
• b.Diffusion of treatment
• c.Instrumentation
• d.Maturation✓

Maturation refers to changes produced by developmental processes over time; toddlers' vocabulary grows naturally over six months, so it could account for the gains. Instrumentation concerns changes in how measurement is done, regression to the mean concerns extreme initial scores drifting back, and diffusion of treatment involves a comparison group receiving the treatment; none of these follows from the scenario as described.

In an A-B-A-B reversal design, behavior returns toward baseline levels when the intervention is withdrawn in the second A phase. This return provides

• a.prediction
• b.verification✓
• c.replication
• d.generalization

Baseline logic in single-case designs has three elements: prediction from stable baseline data, verification that behavior would have continued at baseline levels had the intervention not been introduced (shown by the return in the second A phase), and replication of the effect when the intervention is reintroduced in the second B phase. Generalization is not an element of baseline logic.

A BCBA wants to evaluate a program teaching three different social skills that are unlikely to be lost once learned. Withdrawing the program would not be expected to reverse the behavior. Which design is most appropriate?

• a.Changing-criterion design
• b.A-B-A-B reversal design
• c.B-A-B withdrawal design
• d.Multiple-baseline design✓

When target behaviors are not expected to reverse, a multiple-baseline design demonstrates control by staggering the intervention across behaviors (or settings or people) and showing change only when each is treated, as Baer, Wolf and Risley described. Reversal and B-A-B designs depend on behavior returning toward baseline when treatment is withdrawn. A changing-criterion design evaluates stepwise changes in a single behavior.

A smoker's daily cigarette limit is lowered in steps (15, then 12, then 9), and smoking closely tracks each new limit before the next step. Which design is this?

• a.Changing-criterion✓
• b.Reversal
• c.Multielement
• d.Multiple baseline across settings

Hartmann and Hall (1976) described the changing-criterion design: a single behavior is required to meet a series of stepwise criteria, and control is shown when behavior changes to match each new criterion. A multiple baseline staggers treatment across tiers, a multielement design rapidly alternates conditions, and a reversal design withdraws treatment.