Date of Award
Spring 4-21-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Tiffany Kodak
Second Advisor
Jim Hoelzle
Third Advisor
Megan Harper
Abstract
Over the past 10 years, the number of newly certified behavior analysts (BCBAs) has increased (LeBlanc et al., 2020). Despite BCBAs being required to pass a credentialing examination, the exam does not necessarily assess an individual’s professional skills. Nevertheless, the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts (2022) specifies that behavior analysts must engage in these skills when communicating with stakeholders, collaborating with colleagues, generating documents in a timely manner, and more. Two important professional skills for behavior analysts are independent problem solving and giving and accepting feedback. Well-developed skills in independent problem solving and giving and accepting feedback can assist with arranging effective behavior analytic interventions, monitoring client progress, and effectively training staff (Ferraioli et al., 2005; Schuler and Carroll, 2018). These skills were also identified as most in need of improvement by BCBA supervisors (Cowan and Kodak, 2023). The goal of the current study was to use behavior skills training (BST) and self-assessment to teach these professional skills to BCBA trainees. Results indicated that BST was an effective method to teach these skills to three participants. Further, the majority of participants maintained these skills 1-week and 2-weeks post-mastery. For most participants, self-assessment rankings also indicated an increase in scores from pre-test to post-test evaluations following acquisition of the target professional skill. Findings suggest future research directions for teaching professional skills including further development and evaluation of a self-assessment tool, assessment of methodology used to teach professional skills, and application of taught skills to naturalistic clinical settings.