ABA Exam Coach

A.1: Identify the goals of behavior analysis as a science (i.e., description, prediction, control).

Free practice questions for this part of the BCBA, with an explanation for every option.

A school-based BCBA observes a 3rd-grade classroom for four weeks without changing anything. She finds that a student's off-task behavior happens much more often during independent seatwork than during small-group instruction. She reports that off-task behavior is likely to occur during future seatwork periods. What level of scientific understanding has she reached?
  1. A. Description
    Description means systematically recording and classifying observed events. She has gone further by identifying a reliable covariation between two events and using it to anticipate future occurrences.
  2. B. Functional analysis
    A functional analysis experimentally manipulates the consequences or antecedents of behavior. That would address control, and it is not one of the three levels of scientific understanding.
  3. C. Prediction
    Correct. Repeated observation showing that two events covary (here, the activity type and off-task behavior) lets her predict one from the other. Prediction is a correlation, not a demonstrated cause.
  4. D. Control
    Control requires manipulating an environmental variable and showing that behavior changes reliably as a result. She manipulated nothing.
A BCBA uses an ABAB design. Off-task behavior drops each time she starts teacher praise for on-task work and rises each time she removes the praise. Across the phases, the change in behavior is reliable and can be replicated. Which goal of behavior analysis has she achieved?
  1. A. Description
    Description is the most basic level: collecting and classifying facts about behavior without showing any relation between variables.
  2. B. Control
    Correct. Turning an independent variable on and off and seeing reliable, replicated changes in behavior shows a functional relation. This is the highest level of understanding, called control.
  3. C. Prediction
    Prediction comes from covariation seen without manipulation. Here the BCBA actively manipulated a variable.
  4. D. Interpretation
    Interpretation means applying known principles to explain behavior that has not been experimentally analyzed. It is not one of the three goals named in the task list.
During intake, an RBT writes down every instance of a client's vocal stereotypy for one week. She records the time, the topography and the duration of each instance. She does not change anything in the environment and does not claim that any variables are related. Which level of scientific understanding do these data represent?
  1. A. Control
    Control requires a manipulated variable and a resulting reliable change in behavior. Nothing was manipulated.
  2. B. Description
    Correct. Systematically observing and recording facts about behavior, without manipulation or relational claims, is description. It is the foundation for later prediction and control.
  3. C. Prediction
    Prediction requires identifying covariation between events, and no relations were identified.
  4. D. Replication
    Replication is an attitude of science (repeating experiments to check reliability). It is not one of the levels of understanding.

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