ABA
Accreditation
of Graduate Programs
of
Study
B. L.
Hopkins
Auburn
University
J. Moore
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
ABAnowoffers accreditation for graduateprogramsof study in behavioranalysis. Minimum standards includecurriculumtopics in (a)theprinciplesofbehavior, (b)within-subjectresearch methodology and direct observation ofbehavior,(c) conceptualissues, and(d)behavioralinterventions,aswellas athesis,
dissertation, review paper, or general examination that is based on a behavior-analytic approach to problemsorissues. Accreditation is viewedas onepartofaprocessconcernedwithdemonstratingthat a persontrainedaccording to agiven setof standards is moreeffective in utilizingthetechniquesofa science thanapersonwhoisnot sotrained.
Key words:accreditation, ABA
TheAssociation for Behavior Analysis (ABA) now offers accreditation for grad-uate programs of studyinbehavior anal-ysis. Thepurpose ofthe present articleis to inform ABA members of the back-ground of the accreditation process and the rationale forbeginning accreditation in theseprofessionally interesting times.
BACKGROUND
Hopkins (1991) recently summarized the workandrecommendations ofABA's Task Force on Accreditation and de-scribed the actions oftheABAExecutive Council in adopting those recommen-dations. The members of the task force were Jon S. Bailey ofFlorida State Uni-versity; KarenBlase of Hull Community Services; Don Bushell, Jr., of the Uni-versity of Kansas; Anthony J. Cuvo of Southern Illinois University; R. Wayne Fuqua ofWestern Michigan University; William L. Heward of Ohio State Uni-versity; B. L. Hopkins and James M. Johnston of AuburnUniversity; Kennon
A. Lattal of West Virginia University; Charles L. Salzberg of Utah State Uni-versity; and Laura Schreibman of the
University ofCalifornia-San Diego.
Correspondenceconcemingthis article should be addressed to B. L. Hopkins, Department of
Psy-chology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849-3501.
The taskforce identified accreditation as adesignation that a program of studies meets certain standards. Certification, in contrast, was identified as a designation bestowed on a person who has met cer-tain standardsof training or preparation. Licensure was identified as a legal enti-tlement often bestowed by states on in-dividuals. This entitlement allowsa per-son to engage in some business or occupation (e.g., psychology). The task force limited its considerations to ac-creditation.
After much debate, a consensus de-veloped among the members of the task force that, although there were obvious risks, a well-executed accreditation sys-temmightcontributetotheeffectiveness of our graduate training by (a) causing us to be public and explicit about how we train, (b)occasioningsystematicand reg-ularreviewofourtrainingefforts,and(c)
creating a forum for sharing training
methods. Benefits of accreditation in-clude increasedeffectiveness oftraining,
greateremploymentof its graduates, and increased leverage with state legislatures
regarding funding. The members ofthe taskforcegenerallyagreed that standards foraccreditation shouldinitiallybe sim-ple, flexible, and few in number. They alsoagreed that thecostsof accreditation
should be modest. There was a
particu-larly strong consensusthat accreditation
should not only protect the interests of
behavior analysts but should also serve students and clients of behavioral ser-vices.
After further discussion, themembers of the task force agreed that they would recommend accreditation of graduate programs of study. A program ofstudy need not have any official political or structuralstatusinacollegeoruniversity. A program of study might be nested in suchauniversity divisionorit
might
even involve thefaculty fromtwo ormoresuch divisions. The intent in emphasizing a program of study, rather than some po-liticaloradministrative division ofa uni-versity, was to provide a way for inter-ested behavior analysts to promote accreditation independently of local structure. The important dimension would be the nature of the training that thestudentsreceived, rather thanthe ex-istence ofa formal academic unit.Inaddition, the task force adopted the
position that accreditation was con-cernedwith programs of study inany as-pect ofbehavior analysis, from applied work tobasic researchto conceptual de-velopment to various combinations of these. Again, the emphasis was on the natureofthetraining received, rather than on the labeling of the program. Thus, a programofstudy could beappropriate to the local setting and would not have to be an entire graduate program devoted totheexperimental analysisof behavior,
applied behavior analysis, clinical
psy-chology, orteachereducation.
Pursuantto asuggestionfrom the ABA Executive Council, the task force devel-opeda setof minimum standards for
ac-creditation ofprogramsat both the mas-ter's and the doctoral levels. The minimum standardsatthe master'slevel
consist ofan educational program with instruction in behavior-analytic ap-proaches to research and conceptual is-sues that includes curriculum topics in (a) theprinciples of behavior;(b)
within-subjectresearchmethodologyanddirect
observation ofbehavior; (c) conceptual issues; and (d) behavioral interventions with suchpossible emphasesasbehavior
therapy, behavioralteaching,and
behav-ioral medicine. The standards further
specify a thesis, reviewpaper, orgeneral examinationwhose questions and meth-ods arebased on abehavior-analytic ap-proach to problems or issues. The term curriculum topic was used rather than course to emphasize the importance of the nature of theeducationalexperience, rather than the often arbitrary distribu-tion of activities over time.
The minimum standards at the doc-toral level are a continuation or an ex-tension of those of the master's level. Thus, standardsat the doctoral level as-sumethat students have already satisfied those of the master's level. The doctoral-level standards consistofaneducational program withinstruction in behavior-an-alytic approaches to research and con-ceptual issues that includes advanced curriculum topicsin(a)oneor more spe-cialized areas ofthe nonhuman and/or human basic research literature, (b) re-search methods, and (c)oneor more ar-eas of the applied behavioral literature. The standardsfor a doctoral program of study furtherspecifyadissertation whose
questions and methods are based on a behavior-analytic approach to problems and issues.
Thetaskforce noted options available to the program being reviewed. It also recommended procedures for modifying the standards,appointingmembers tothe ABAAccreditingBoard, and the board's receiving and reviewing applications for accreditation. The ABA Executive Coun-cil adopted these recommendations in 1991. It is especially important to note that the board will only make recom-mendations about accreditation to the Executive Council. All action is takenby
thecouncil.JayMooreof theUniversity
of Wisconsin-Milwaukeewas appointed
tobe the first Chairofthe Accreditation
Board. Initial members ofthe board are MarkGalizio ofthe Universityof North Carolina at Wilmington, Gina Green of theE.K. Shriver Center,KennonA. Lat-talofWest
Virginia
University,Margaret E. Lloydof Central WashingtonUniver-sity, Charles L. Salzberg of Utah State
University, and C. Richard
Tsegaye-Spates of Western
Michigan University.
re-quests for consideration for accredita-tion; processes like those recommended by the task force arebeginningtooccur.
ACCREDITATION: WHY, ANDWHY NOW? ABAisbeginningtoaccredit programs
of study at an interesting and possibly
even a dangerous time in the history of the profession. Some reflections on re-cent events will highlight some of the complexities inherent in accreditation, especially for appliedprograms.
As many members ofABA may know, thousands ofacademic, research-orient-ed psychologists have recently deserted the 100-year-old American Psychologi-cal Association (APA) because the gov-ernance of APA has been taken over by practicing psychologists, a majority of whom areclinical psychologists. The Di-vision 25 Recorder has published some
ofthe debate ontherecenttrialsof APA
(Catania, 19 91; Graham, 199 1; Hayes, 1991; Paniagua, 1991; Salzinger, 1991; Stolz, 1991). A significant portionofthe debate concerns the relatively large amountofattention that APA devotesto "guild" issues, such as third-party pay-mentsandfeestructuresforvarious kinds ofapplied psychologists, rather than to scientific research issues associated with the scholarly traditions ofa leamed
so-ciety.
Ofcourse, APA is the major force in
accrediting appliedandprofessional pro-grams in psychology. Its domination of the accreditation process contributes to the current tension in the discipline
(Brewer, 1992). The complaints about APA accreditation are legion. Some as-sert that it is inappropriate for an orga-nization (APA) thatiscontrolled by
prac-ticing psychologists to dictate standards
by which programs housed in
universi-tiesareaccredited.OthersassertthatAPA
standardsfor accreditationareirrelevant to the broader context of applied
psy-chology. Still othersassert that APA ac-creditation seems toinclude agreatdeal of
concern
about process and adherence to criteria, but little concern about out-come.Given these controversies about APA and its accreditation process, a number ofquestions arise concerning ABA and its efforts at accreditation. Some are broad. For example, if accreditation is such a good idea, then why is it so con-troversialinAPA?Similarly, should ABA even contemplate accreditation?
Othersare morefocused:Are the stan-dards adopted by ABA equally relevant to the training ofboth practitioners and researchers?Afterall,APA accredits only applied programs. ABA will accredit pro-grams emphasizing applied work, basic research, conceptual analyses, and mixtures of all three.
Still otherquestions suggest that ABA might eventually face the same problems currentlyconfronting APA.Forexample, ifamajorityof the members ofABA will someday be practitioners, as appears likely, will they try to dictate to those in academic behavior analysis how pro-gramsofeducation and training "should" berun?Afterall, don't members of ABA already debate how graduate students should betrained forappliedwork(Baer,
1992; Johnston, 1992; Malott, 1992; Reid, 1992)? Will ABA be fragmented
like APA over these issues?
Perhaps thesequestionscan beusefully placed inabroadercontext. Asa case in point, let us consider the issues associ-ated with accrediting applied programs. Ifascientificdisciplinehasagood theory aboutthe waysome manipulable partof the universe works, then techniques for
changing that part of the universe are
likely to result. Ifapplicationsofthe tech-nologyare atall complex,thensome peo-ple are likely to specialize in these
ap-plications. If otherpeople value changes in those partsof the universe, then they are likely to pay the specialists for
ap-plying the useful technology. Thus are
createdpractitionersorpeoplewhoapply technologyderived from science.
Inany case,once ascience hasyielded technologiesof sufficientcomplexitythat
specialists are required to apply them,
some regulation ofthe training of those
specialists is common. The intent of the
regulation is to ensure the
regu-lation occurs in medicine and engineer-ing. The regulationintheseareas maybe far from perfect, buteducators common-ly assume that applications ofthe rele-vant technology are better with regula-tion than without it.
Behavior analysis seems to be in this same position. Behavior analysis de-scribes how the behavioral part of the universe works. Behavior-analytic tech-nologies have proveduseful enough that they are employed in a wide variety of situations, ranging from the workplace (Fox, Hopkins, & Anger, 1987) to edu-cational settings (Becker & Engelman, 1978;Bushell, 1978). At least for the mo-ment, the applications of these technol-ogies are often sufficiently complex that specialized training is necessary beforea person can reliably accomplish the changes inthebehavioral part ofthe uni-verse.
Let us return for the moment to the
question of what has gone wrong with APA and its accreditation process. Pre-sumably, the officers of APA didnot in-tend for the organization to become so split. Rather, they intended for APA to overseethe effectiveapplication of tech-nology as they see it.
Letusconsider the standards involved in APA accreditation. Accreditation by APA is based on standards that include statements about (a) the kinds of insti-tutions that may carry out accredited
training, (b) the backgrounds offaculty
thatshouldcarry outthetraining, (c)the devotion ofthe trainingprogram to cul-tural and individual differences, (d) the recruitment and retention ofcertain kinds ofpeople astrainees, (e) theexistence of certain kinds offacilities, and(f) the ex-istenceofcertain educationalexperiences
and methods. APA standardsfor clinical psychologists have evolved from com-mon practices in educational institu-tions. With regard to educational expe-riences, APA standards require the
teaching ofcourses in such areas as
bi-ological bases ofbehavior,
cognitive-af-fective bases ofbehavior, social basesof
behavior, and individual differences (American Psychological Association Council ofRepresentatives, 1979).
What is wrong with these standards? There is probablynothing "wrong" with them, as far as they go. However, APA standards do not require an accredited program to teach technologies that are basedinscience and that have been dem-onstratedtochange those parts of the be-havioral universe that are problems. They do not require accredited programs to teach students which technologies have and which have not been shown to be effective for relevant problems. They do not require that graduates of accredited programs besuccessfulinapplying prov-entechnology.Insummary,thereare ab-solutelyno data to support the
implica-tion that a person trained according to APA standards will be any moreeffective
inapplyingtechnologies to thebenefitof clients thanapersonwhoisnotsotrained. Rather, APA'saccreditation process ap-pears designed to satisfy the diverse
ex-trascientificdemands ofaheterogeneous
constituency. Perhaps thereislittle won-der that pragmatic, empirically minded academic andpracticing psychologistsare critical ofaccreditationas carriedoutby APA.
CONCLUSION
ABA shouldbeabletodomuch better. Its goals concerning the accreditation process should presumably include the
following:
1. Todevelopastatementofthe kinds ofevidence and controls necessary for declaring a behavioral technology
effec-tive for agiven problem.
2. Tosorttheexisting
technologies
into those that research has proved effectiveand those that it has proved ineffective.
3. To require that applied programs
seeking accreditation teach which tech-nologies are effective and which are in-effective.
4. To promote research that will an-alyze and develop training methods for teaching students to employ effective
technology.
5. To promote research that will
an-alyze and develop trainingmethods and experiencesfor teachingstudentstowork
6. Toeducateconsumers of behavior-al technology and employers of behav-ioral practitioners about which technol-ogies are effective and which are ineffective, and then to promote the use of effective technology.
7. Todevelopacode ofethics that em-phasizes, among otherpractices, the use oftechnologies that are effective and es-chews those, except for research purpos-es, that areineffective.
8. To move as rapidly as possible to
revise standards for accreditation to
re-flect,notsimplyeducationalexperiences,
but training in effective technology that is basedonmethodsdefinedatleast
part-ly bythe eventualsuccessofgraduates of programs.
As these goals suggest, ABA's accred-itation process should serve the disci-pline by helping to demonstrate that a person trained according to ABA stan-dards is more effective inapplying tech-nologies than a person who is not so trained. Afterall,wemust notforgetthat we arein the samepositionasAPA: We have yet to supply the data that warrant such a statement.
The possibilities appear promising. Perhaps the scholarly contributions of those whoclarifybasicprinciples will be more generally recognized. Perhaps the demonstrated usefulness of those who
bring the fruits of science to the culture will be more generally appreciated.
Per-haps science will be more generally
rec-ognized as a source ofa better life.
Per-hapstighteningthe relationshipbetween
scienceanditstechnologicalvalueto
so-ciety will even improve the quality of
science. Perhaps a basis for maintaining
ABA as the viable, functional organiza-tion ithasbecome overthelast 20 years will have beenestablished. Perhaps ABA will haveinitiatedaresearch programfor
solvingarguments about training meth-ods. Perhaps, then,anaccreditation pro-cessthatisappropriatefor behavior
anal-ysiswill have been achieved.
REFERENCES
American Psychological Association Council of
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