News and Notes
January, 2007
Page 4

Gerald Shook, PhD, BCBA
BACB Chief Executive Officer

On-Line Certificant Survey
We wish to thank all of you who participated in the on-line “BACB Mega Survey” conducted this past spring. The main purpose of the survey was to obtain information from certificants that could be used by the BACB and its Board of Directors in future planning activities. Individual invitations were sent to all of the BACB’s then 4,200-plus certificants. A total of 1,767 individuals (42%) participated and earned one hour of Type 5 continuing education credit. The survey results were reviewed by the Board of Directors at their 2006 annual meeting in late May and they are playing an important role in a number of key decisions. For example, survey results indicated that you wanted to renew, recertify, and pay on-line as well as have your continuing education tracked on-line. In response, the BACB has contracted with The Cobalt Company in Virginia for the development of a new, more robust database that will support all of these on-line functions. In another example, you indicated strong support (93%) for the current practice of on-line certificant voting for new Directors, and the BACB will retain that format. Over 60% of you indicated that you preferred the current printable electronic format of newsletter

 

to a paper edition so we will retain this electronic printable format, at least in the near term (this allows us to save money in printing and mailing costs so that we can invest in initiatives such as the on-line features you requested). Responses to other survey questions will most certainly guide future actions. The survey results also provided interesting demographic information. For example, 73% of the survey respondents were female; the largest numbers of respondents who also held an additional credential were teachers; over 60% of the respondents attend the Association for Behavior Analysis International conventions; and 4 of the certificants who responded also are lawyers. We learned a lot though this survey, including how to ask better questions, and you can look forward to this type of survey regularly in the future. By the way, we think that the 2% of survey respondents who rated the information in this newsletter as “not at all helpful” must have us confused with another newsletter.

Specialties
Influenced by survey responses, the BACB Board of Directors decided to explore the need for specialties in both 1) autism, and 2) other developmental disabilities, as either two separate or one combined credential. The BACB plans to follow established specialty development protocol

  The BACB: The Best
Stimulant for Behavior Analysis Training Programs
Page 1
  Did you know?
Page 2
  News and Notes
Page 4
 

Focus on Ethics
Page 9

  The Ethical Behavior
Analyst
Page 10
  Where Do We Get
Those Exam
Questions, Anyway?
Page 11
Many Thanks
Page 13