Supervision Behaviors of Board Certified Behavior Analysts With Trainees.

Abstract

The field of behavior analysis is growing rapidly, and high-quality supervision is essential to producing thoughtful and effective Board Certified Behavior Analysts. There is little empirical information about the behaviors that supervisors engage in to support trainees in developing critical skills. Therefore, our purpose in this study was to survey supervisors (n = 317) about their supervision practices to better understand how frequently they engage in recommended supervision practices and whether the frequency with which they engage in recommended practices is related to demographic characteristics. Our results suggest that there is wide variability in the extent to which individual supervisors engage in recommended practices, and that supervisors engage in practices more frequently for which there are concrete guidelines and supports in place (e.g., behavioral skills training). We discuss the implications of our results for supporting supervisors to engage in recommended practices and for future research.