Emperor Au Naturel: Can We Talk? Because Continuing Education Is A Bit Of A Mess

What would an expert in behavior change say about our CE system?

Recently there’s been a stimulating debate on the Teaching Behavior Analysis listserv about what is going on with Continuing Education for Applied Behavior Analysis practitioners. What I find curious about the thread is why everyone in our discipline isn’t engaged in the same discussion.

I need to be clear: This will NOT be a screed against the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, which oversees ABA CEs, and I’m not one of those old farts who’s simply put off by how much behavior analysis has changed since practitioner certification became a big deal. What I am doing is asking whether we are doing enough to maximize the quality of what’s become a big component of the world of behavior analysis.

Let me warm you up to this topic by recounting one of my own recent experiences.

As a college professor I’m not chained to the CE treadmill, but I attend a lot of conference presentations and webinars that count for CE credits. In one such session, the presenter began without 20 minutes of autobiographical information. This was followed by about 15 minutes of demonstrations that, while possibly entertaining to some of the attendees, lacked any obvious connection to the session’s stated topic. Scattered throughout were numerous off-the-cuff observations on… whatever seemed to enter into the presenter’s stream of consciousness, most of which had nothing to do with behavior analysis. Once you added in stock introductory and concluding comments, the session included maybe two minutes of attention to what the session was supposed to be about. Two minutes.

As I sat in bewilderment following that session, I realized that, although this was an extreme case, a lot of what bothered me I had seen in many other CE sessions. But details are unimportant. Let’s review the big picture.

Supply and Demand: CE is Huge

According to the BACB, at last count, 71,660 Board Certified Behavior Analysts® and 5445 Board Certified Associate Behavior Analysts® needed 20 CE credits every two years. That’s 1,542,100 credits every two years.

Starting in 2026, Registered Behavior Technicians®, all 187,034 of them, will need 12 CE credits every two years, which will amount to another 2,244,408 credits biennially.

Not all CE offerings come with a financial cost, but most do. Let’s imagine that those 3,786,508 credits that practitioners will be chasing starting in 2026 cost $10 each. That translates to nearly two billion dollars changing hands each year.

The Pedagogy is Positively Prehistoric

CE in behavior analysis was created in the mold of CE in more established disciplines, who took their cue from higher education, which has been doing things more or less the same way since universities were invented: An “expert” talks, and everyone else listens. You don’t have to know a ton about behavior to know that telling usually isn’t teaching. CE almost always is delivered in lecture format, and, as any undergraduate can tell you, lectures usually are organized around “content,” not around the active responding that fuels learning. Behavior analysts know a ton about learning generally, and about instruction specifically. None of that is required to be woven into CE sessions.

A related point is that a lot of presenters are just bad at presenting. Some familiar outcomes:

So much is presented so quickly that it all becomes a blur. The presenter’s verbal habits are so annoying that the session becomes intolerable. The content is bewilderingly disorganized. The visual aids are a mess. And so on.

Sessions Are All But Unregulated

CE providers (over 2000 of them currently) have to be approved by the BACB. Once approved, a provider is supposed to assure that presenters are properly qualified and offer suitable sessions. But in practice, there’s not a lot of session-by-session accountability, and understandably so because once a presenter is lined up, neither the provider nor the BACB has any control over what’s delivered, and not much can be done if a session turns out to be substandard.

As a result, you’ve probably heard stories like mine in which what was offered in a CE session seemed far removed from the BACB’s stated purpose of CEs: “To ensure that certificants continue to engage in activities that expand their behavior-analytic skills beyond the requirements for initial certification and help them stay up to date on developments in the profession.” Let me state that another way: The point of CE is to maximize benefits to practitioners and the clients that they serve. I’m being subjective here, but I’ve seen a lot of sessions that look questionable.

And I’m not even addressing the many sessions people have told me about in which the content was simply wrong.

Nobody Knows if CE Works

To behavior analysts, effectiveness is empirically defined, and there are almost no published studies on how CE experiences affect ABA practitioners. Sure, based on norms of pedagogy we can speculate that CE probably is ineffectual, but in the end only research can tell us what we need to know. And, as far as I’m aware, there’s almost no research on how well CE works. In fact, based on a cursory literature search, I found only one peer-reviewed study.

Dunleavy (2014) created a three-hour CE course on applied behavior analysis for occupational therapists, who are famous for preferring unproven approaches to autism like sensory integration therapy. Pre- and post-test assessments, along with a one-month followup, showed that attendee knowledge about behavior analysis improved. However, most of the attendees said they would continue to use sensory integration rather than ABA.

The truth is that we have basically zero evidence that eliminating CE entirely would change anything in ABA except that a lot of practitioners would have a lot more time and money on their hands.

It Needs to Work

At least we would hope it works. Behavior analysis doesn’t stand still, and workers in all of its branches need to keep their training up to date. Unfortunately, we have basically zero evidence that eliminating CE entirely would change anything in ABA except that a lot of practitioners would have a lot more time and money on their hands.

We Should Talk About This

We’re all responsible for making behavior analysis as good as it can be. And a system of Continuing Education that raises a lot of questions has taken shape right under our noses. Never mind that our system mirrors that of pretty much every other discipline, where similar questions are being raised. CE is, presumably, an exercise in behavior change, that behavior change is supposed to be our jam. So why isn’t our system more admirable? Can’t we do better?

We need to talk about how CE diverges from best practices, and how better practices might be implemented. But we also need to talk about forces that helped to shape our system in the first place. Everyone involved butts up against a whole host of practical constraints on what kind of “education” can be offered what kind of effectiveness evidence might be obtained. And of course we’ve reached a point where a lot of folks benefit financially from the system as it currently stands, which suggests a source of resistance to change.

I do not know what the answers should be. I do know that the input of all stakeholders is needed to approach them. And that there’s a lot to be hashed out. Can we start that conversation? You can help: Post a comment in the “Leave a Reply” box!

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Postscript: What the BACB Says CE Should Be

From the BACB Accredited Continuing Education Provider Handbook (download here):

The content of Learning CE events may address any aspect of behavior analysis: practice, science, methodology, theory, or the profession itself. In addition, Learning CE content must cover material that goes beyond the current BCBA Task List and BCaBA Task List, be behavior-analytic in nature, be designed for attendees with a behavior-analytic background, and reflect current and accurate content.

Beyond the Current Task List: Learning CE events must cover material that goes beyond the current BCBA Task List and BCaBA Task List and coursework required to sit for the certification exams. However, the event may include a brief review of task list material during the introductory portion. For example, an event may include a review of the typical functions of behavior before covering new research on functional analysis. Events that merely repackage basic behavior-analytic techniques are not acceptable for Learning CE….

Behavior-Analytic in Nature: The majority of a Learning CE event must cover content that is behavior-analytic in nature. For example, an event covering the characteristics and diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder is not appropriate for Learning CE. However, an event covering techniques for safely conducting functional  assessments of stereotypic behavior is appropriate.

Audience: The Learning CE event should be designed for professional behavior analysts who have already had bachelor’s level (BCaBA) or master’s level (BCBA) coursework in behavior analysis. Events designed for other audiences, such as parents or professionals from other disciplines, should not be offered for Learning CE.

Up-to-Date Content: ACE Providers should make every effort to ensure that the content of all CE events is accurate and up-to-date (e.g., it represents best available scientific evidence; is focused on current best practices in behavior analysis; is consistent with current local laws, regulations, policies, and ethical standards).