An Investigation of BCBA Exam Pass Rates as a Quality Indicator of Applied Behavior Analysis Training Programs

Examining trends in certification examination pass rates across 8 years of behavior analyst certification board-published data.

“…This finding aligns with that of Dubuque and Kazemi (2022) and we reiterate their concern for the implications. Nearly half of first-time candidates sitting for the examination represent an extremely small proportion of programs, which in turn reflect moderate pass rates.…”

“…Visual analysis of pass rates across program modes and over time provided additional insight. The mean pass rates across all program modes were relatively stable across all 8 years, consistent with the findings of Dubuque and Kazemi (2022). Interestingly, pass rates showed a slight, but uniform, increase in 2020, and a slightly larger, but still uniform decrease in 2021.…”

“…Although our analyses did not detect robust relations between number of first-time candidates and pass rates, the mean pass rate of this outlier subset (i.e., the 11 programs with a number of first-time candidates greater than the calculated outlier cutoff of 124) was 53.7% (range = 34.1%-78.8%). 4 This finding aligns with that of Dubuque and Kazemi (2022) and we reiterate their concern for the implications. Nearly half of first-time candidates sitting for the examination represent an extremely small proportion of programs, which in turn reflect moderate pass rates.…”

“…Previous research examining relations among program characteristics and pass rates focused on data from a single year (e.g., Shepley et al, 2018) or aggregated across several years (Guinness & Turner, 2022). Among other analyses, Dubuque and Kazemi (2022) presented pass rate data from 2013 to 2020 across time. Pass rates were relatively stable across years when examined in aggregate across program modes, while the number of first-time candidates showed an increasing trend between 2015 and 2019.…”

The physics problem solving skills profile of high school students in elasticity material and the implementation of augmented reality book-assisted PBL model

“…In practicing students' PSS, teachers assess each student's PSS based on adjusted indicators (Dubuque & Kazemi, 2022). The ACCES indicator is used in measuring students' PSS.…”