Build-A-Behavior: Educator Preferences in Process Versus Content Skills in Collaboration with School-Based Behavior Analaysts

  • 10/04/2025
  • 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
  • BehaviorLive Website

The involvement of behavior analysts in supporting public education settings continues to rise. Despite this increase, most of the extant literature has looked at stakeholder opinions of behavior analysts in clinic-based populations, and little research has considered the perceptions of behavior analysts within the public-school sector. This work looks at two different educator preference studies conducted nationwide. The first study describes outcomes to a delay-discounting methodology replicated from Swift and Callahan (2010), in which education professionals responded to a survey outlining their perceptions and desires when in behavioral consultation. Results indicate that most participants were willing to discount intervention effectiveness to work with a specialist/consultant who demonstrates preferred interpersonal characteristics (e.g., warm and affirming). The second project examined the exemplary characteristics educators determined would be preferential for behavioral specialists to demonstrate in collaboration or consultation. Data indicates that process variables such as student-centered, collaborative, and effective communication skills are preferred over content variables (i.e., technological, conceptually systematic, etc.). Given the fact that education is the second most populous area of work for behavior analysts, these two studies add to the field through the identification of preferences from educational professionals, thereby allowing stakeholder insight for school-based behavior analysts.


Hawai'i Association for Behavior analysis

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