DOI: 10.5061/dryad.q2bvq83v1
title: A survey of ethics-related training within behavior analysis

description: Ethics guidelines, trainings, and continuing education requirements are
 frequently updated to reflect the ongoing need to better prepare behavior
 analysts to face ethical dilemmas in their daily practice. In terms of the
 ethics trainings that behavior analysts are currently experiencing, they
 are potentially encountering a narrow and rigid set of trainings and
 resources, which may then necessitate an expanded approach to ethics. If
 behavior analysts are not adequately trained and are not supported in
 developing their ethical repertoire, then these gaps in training can
 detrimentally impact clients served as well as the field at large. The
 present study aimed to survey practitioners in the field on their ethics
 training experiences in supporting their ethical daily practices using
 questions targeted towards pre-certification ethics coursework, ethics
 continuing education units, and ongoing environmental supports. Data
 suggest that several factors significantly impact practitioner’s
 perception of their ethics trainings (e.g., preparedness and relevance) to
 complete their job responsibilities in compliance with the Behavior
 Analyst Certification Board (BACB) Ethics Code. Implications for ethics
 guidelines and training requirements for the field are discussed.
description: Participants The target population for this
 study was all behavior analysts aged 18 years or older who actively held a
 certification through the BACB[1], excluding Registered Behavior
 Technicians (RBTs). Overall, <em>N</em> = 217 individuals
 agreed to participate in the survey. Since participants only completed
 portions of the survey depending on their varying degrees of experience
 within the field, not all 217 individuals completed the whole survey.
 Participants’ responses were included for data analysis if they completed
 at least two-thirds of one section of the survey[2]. Data for 73
 respondents were excluded from analysis; 45 participants did not meet the
 “two-thirds rule” and 28 did not meet our inclusion criteria (i.e., were
 RBTs). The data for the remaining 144 respondents were included for data
 analysis. Demographic, education, and employment data of survey
 participants are presented in Table 1. This study included participants
 across all gender and ethnic backgrounds within the specified age range.
 The resulting sample is fairly representative of the target population in
 terms of race, gender, age, certification, and professional emphasis[3]
 (BACB, 2023). Participants self-selected into the study
 from anonymous links that were distributed over social media (further
 described below). Due to the nature of the survey distribution, it is
 unclear how many individuals were invited to participate in the survey
 (e.g., viewed on social media) but chose not to do so. Therefore, we were
 unable to calculate the overall response rate.
 Procedure The first author distributed the
 survey using an anonymous Qualtrics link to various platforms, including
 behavior analytic social media sites (e.g., Facebook pages), Reddit pages,
 listservs (e.g., Teaching Behavior Analysis), state organizations (e.g.,
 [State] Association for Behavior Analysis), and the researchers’ personal
 social media profiles. The survey links were active for six months. Once
 the target number of responses were acquired (200), the first author
 inactivated the survey link. All participants who accessed the survey via
 the link were first provided a consent form. Once informed consent was
 obtained to participate in the study, participants were asked to respond
 to a series of open- and closed-ended questions about their ethics
 training experiences.      Measure
      Due to the exploratory nature of the study and lack of
 validated constructs assessed, the survey items were written by the author
 team for the purpose of this study, rather than utilizing pre-validated
 assessments from the literature. Development of the survey itself involved
 collaboration with a trained survey researcher, who is the fourth author
 of this study. We also referenced previous survey studies published within
 the behavior analytic literature in developing the survey questions
 themselves (Colombo et al., 2021; Conners et al., 2019; DiGennaro Reed
 & Henley, 2015; Young-Pelton & Dotson, 2017). The authors
 conducted a pilot test of the survey to solicit feedback from other
 practicing behavior analysts, who were either BCaBAs, BCBAs, or BCBA-Ds,
 on the structure and contents of the survey. Eleven people participated in
 the pilot survey, and we finalized the survey questions based on their
 feedback. The final survey was distributed via Qualtrics. Participants
 completed the survey through an anonymous link, and they were only able to
 complete the survey once.             The survey
 comprised four sections with questions related to (1) pre-certification
 ethics coursework, (2) ethics CE, (3) current environment ethics supports,
 and (4) demographic information. There was a total of 69 questions on the
 survey; however, not all respondents encountered every question due to
 skip logic throughout the survey. For example, if a respondent did not
 experience a stand-alone ethics course in their pre-certification
 coursework, then they would not encounter any of the survey questions
 pertaining to a stand-alone ethics course. The survey
 included a combination of dichotomous (yes/no) questions, multiple choice
 questions (1 credit, 2 credits, 3 credits, etc.), multiple response
 (select all that apply) questions, and Likert-scale questions. Respondents
 were also provided with the opportunity to elaborate on their answers
 through several open-ended questions. The full list of the questions we
 asked via the survey can be found in the supplemental materials (SI_1).
   Data Analysis We evaluated survey
 responses using quantitative (Research Questions 1-5) and qualitative
 (Research Questions 6-7) analyses. To conduct all statistical analyses, we
 used SPSS Statistics (Version 28; IBM Corp., 2022). We investigated
 dependencies between independent and dependent variables using chi-square
 tests for multiple response sets. For group comparisons, we also conducted
 univariate ANOVAs and dichotomized the independent variables for those
 analyses. For example, for the question asking participants to select the
 topics included in their pre-certification coursework, we dichotomized
 their responses into “yes” (their coursework did include that topic) or
 “no” (their coursework did not include that topic) for each topic listed.
 This was done due to the multiple response format (i.e., “choose all that
 apply”) of several questions in the survey.
 Non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-tests (Mann & Whitney,
 1947; Wilcoxon, 1945) and ROC-Curves (Hanley & McNeil, 1982) were
 also conducted to account for the non-normal distribution and lack of
 homogeneity of variance in the sample . Furthermore, a Bonferroni
 correction was applied to control for alpha error accumulation due to a
 higher number of statistical tests being conducted. As a result, an alpha
 level of .002 was established. In addition to our
 pre-determined research questions, we applied exploratory multiple
 regression analyses and Pearson correlations to test whether the selected
 number of topics or activities during pre-certification coursework or CE
 predicted (or correlated) with participants’ perceived level of
 preparedness or relevance of pre-certification or CE training topics. The
 predictors were tested beforehand for multi-collinearity, which was not
 deemed to be an issue (i.e., a variance inflation factor [VIF] &lt;5
 suggested that predictors were not too highly correlated with each other
 to be entered into the same model). Our qualitative
 analyses of open-ended responses were guided by Saldaña (2021) and
 included four steps: (1) forming categories based on the content of the
 open-ended responses; (2) sorting responses into those categories; (3)
 creating pivot tables for categories; and (4) summarizing the categories
 into general commonalities based on the category frequencies from the
 pivot tables. All steps were completed using Excel. For Step 1 (forming
 categories), the first two authors independently reviewed the open-ended
 response data and created proposed categories that could be used to sort
 the data. The first two authors then jointly reviewed the lists and
 combined or removed categories until 100% agreement was obtained,
 resulting in a finalized list of 15 categories (see Table 2. Next (Step 2,
 sorting) the first two authors independently sorted participant responses
 into the 15 categories. Individual responses were sorted into multiple
 relevant categories if necessary. Once all responses were independently
 sorted, sorting was jointly reviewed until 100% agreement was obtained. A
 third independent observer (the third author) also sorted each response
 into the previously agreed upon categories and then jointly reviewed these
 responses with the list of sorted responses provided by the first two
 authors until 100% agreement was obtained. For Step 3 (creating pivot
 tables), we sorted the open-ended response data by their categories and
 summarized the number of responses within each category using the pivot
 table function in Excel. Finally (Step 4, generating themes), the first
 two authors extrapolated general themes from the data across and within
 categories by jointly reviewing the category frequencies from the pivot
 tables. For example, if the category “Relevance of the BACB code to daily
 practice” had the highest relative frequency within the pre-certification
 section of our analysis, then we extrapolated this category as a general
 theme for the pre-certification section and further analyzed the
 pre-certification responses that were sorted into this category for their
 specific content. [1] For the purpose of
 this survey study, certifications through the BACB included: Board
 Certified assistant Behavior Analyst (BCaBA), Board Certified Behavior
 Analyst (BCBA), and Board Certified Behavior Analyst Doctoral
 (BCBA-D). [2] However, data for 10 respondents were
 excluded from the first section due to an error in the skip logic. Data
 for these participants were included for the remaining sections.
 [3] Per the BACB, a majority of behavior analysts are white
 (73.3%), female (88.6%), and between the ages of 25-34 years old (44.9%),
 with a primary area of professional emphasis in autism spectrum disorders
 (75.3%) (BACB, n.d.).
description: # A survey of ethics-related training within behavior analysis
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.q2bvq83v1](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.q2bvq83v1) ## Description of the data and file structure We conducted a survey study using statistical and qualitative analyses to understand the state of ethics trainings within the field of behavior analysis. The first data set is our quantitative data from the survey that we ran through statistical software, and the second data set is our qualitative data from the survey that we coded and analyzed using a thematic analysis. ### Files and variables #### File: Qualitative_Analysis_Data.Aggregate_(1).csv **Description:** This file includes all of the qualitative raw data from the survey responses. Each Excel sheet includes the qualitative responses for a specific question from the survey. The first column is the question, along with each response for that question. Subsequent columns are the coded categories from 3 independent observers and their notes, including the agreed-upon categories for each response for observers 1 and 2 and the agreed-upon categories for each response for all 3 observers. Consumers of the data can use the categories to code each qualitative response for each open-ended question from the survey. ##### Variables * Topics * Relevance * Preparedness * Support * Utility * Changes #### File: Ethics_Survey_Data.NoIDs_Revised.csv **Description:** This file includes all of the raw data from the survey responses. Each row includes the data for one participant with each column representing a survey question along with its respective answer. Since the data set is ready for analysis through statistical software, consumers of the data can input this data into their software of choice for analysis. The top row in the excel file explains the coded responses and their corresponding numerical values in the data set. ##### Variables * Preparedness * *Description*: Evaluating participants' perceived level of preparedness in their daily practice based on their pre-certification ethics training and ethics continuing education units * *Interpretation*: 1 = Definitely not prepared, 2 = Hardly prepared, 3 = Somewhat prepared, 4 = Mostly prepared, 5 = Definitely prepared * *Location*: Column CO and column EI * Relevance * *Description*: Evaluating participants' perceived level of relevance of their pre-certification ethics training and continuing education units to their daily practice * *Interpretation*: 1 = Not relevant, 2 = Rarely relevant, 3 = Sometimes relevant, 4 = Often relevant, 5 = Always relevant * *Location*: Column CL and column EG * Topics * *Description*: Evaluating the topics participants experienced in their pre-certification ethics training and ethics continuing education units * *Interpretation*: 1 = Historical antecedents to ethics in behavior analysis, 2 = Ethical principles, 3 = BACB ethics codes, 4 = Morality, 5 = Ethical decision making, 6 = Cultural humility and responsiveness, 7 = Ethics codes from other fields, 8 = Laws related to application of ABA (e.g., IDEA, ADA), 9 = Other (please specify) * *Location*: Column CA and column DV * Activities * *Description*: Evaluating the activities participants experienced in their pre-certification ethics training and ethics continuing education units * *Interpretation*: 1 = Scenarios, 2 = Lecture/Didactic training, 3 = Modeling (Trainer demonstrates skills to be performed), 4 = Practice in a role-play or rehearsal situation, 5 = Performance feedback, 6 = Interactive discussion, 7 = Interaction with a current BCBA (e.g., shadow or interview current behavior analysts), 8 = Written or oral quizzes, 9 = In class debates, 10 = Textbooks, 11 = Articles, 12 = Other (please specify) * *Location*: Column BM and column DH * Format * *Description*: Evaluating the format of instruction participants experienced in their pre-certification ethics training and ethics continuing education units * *Interpretation*: 1 = Synchronous: Live face-to-face (in person), 2 = Synchronous: Live but via technology (video conference), 3 = Asynchronous: Online (no interaction with another person), 4 = Asynchronous: Online (with interaction with another person), 5 = Other (please specify) * *Location*: Column BF and column DE * Practicum * *Description*: Evaluating whether or not participants experienced practicum in their pre-certification ethics training * *Interpretation*: 1 = Yes, 2 = No, 3 = I don't remember, 4 = I didn't have practicum as part of my coursework * *Location*: Column CN * Number of continuing education credits * *Description*: Evaluating how many more continuing education credits participants received * *Interpretation*: 1 = 1 to 3 more credits, 2 = 4 to 6 more credits, 4 = 10+ more credits, 3 = 7 to 9 more credits, 5 = Other (please specify) * *Location*: Column CT * Frequency of ethical dilemmas * *Description*: Evaluating how often participants experience ethical dilemmas in their daily practice * *Interpretation*: 1 = None, 2 = Once a month, 3 = Twice a month, 4 = Three times a month, 5 = 4+ ethical dilemmas in a month, 6 = Less than once a month * *Location*: Column FJ * Primary areas of emphasis * *Description*: Evaluating participants' primary area of professional emphasis * *Interpretation*: 1 = Autism Spectrum Disorder, 4 = Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities, 5 = Clinical Behavior Analysis, 6 = Behavioral Pediatrics, 7 = Behavioral Gerontology, 8 = Dissemination of Behavior Analysis, 9 = Organizational Behavior Management, 10 = Parent & Caregiver Training, 11 = Professional Supervision, 12 = Education, 13 = Higher Education, 14 = Non-university Research, 15 = Public Policy & Advocacy, 16 = Brain Injury Rehabilitation, 17 = Child Welfare, 18 = Corrections & Delinquency, 19 = Sports & Fitness, 20 = Other (please specify) * *Location*: Column AC * Additional support available * *Description*: Evaluating if participants receive support to resolve ethical dilemmas in their daily practice * *Interpretation*: 1 = Yes, 2 = No, 3 = Other (please specify) * *Location*: Column FK * General service area of organizations * *Description*: Evaluating the size of participants' organizations * *Interpretation*: 1 = Local organization (e.g., within one town), 2 = State-wide organization (e.g., within multiple counties), 3 = Regional organization (e.g., southwest United States), 4 = National organization (e.g., across the United States), 5 = International organization (e.g., inside and outside of United States), 6 = Other (please specify) * *Location*: Column Y ## Human subjects data We have received explicit consent from participants to publish the de-identified data in the public domain and have redacted all identifiable data.