BCBA Exam Terms, Explained Plainly
The exam is written in technical language, but nobody learns a concept from its technical definition first. Every term here starts in plain words, then gives you the formal definition, then shows you worked examples and the near-misses that are not examples.
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Every Term, in Four Parts
The order matters. A definition you cannot picture is a definition you will not recognize under time pressure.
Plain words
What the concept actually is, said the way you would say it to a colleague who is not a behavior analyst.
The technical definition
The formal wording, with the source it comes from, because the exam will use the formal wording.
Examples
Concrete cases from real practice, each with a note explaining what makes it an instance of the concept.
Not examples
The near-misses. Knowing what a concept excludes is what the harder exam questions are testing.
There are 228 written and individually reviewed concept pages, covering the terms that carry the most weight on the exam.
Organized by the Nine Domains
Terms sit under the domain of the BCBA 6th-edition Test Content Outline they belong to, so studying a weak domain means working through one list rather than hunting.
Behaviorism and Philosophical Foundations
Radical behaviorism, determinism, parsimony, selectionism, and the assumptions the rest of the field rests on.
Concepts and Principles
Reinforcement, punishment, extinction, motivating operations, stimulus control, and the vocabulary that carries the most marks.
Measurement, Data Display, and Interpretation
Counting behavior, choosing a measure, graphing it, and reading what the graph does and does not show.
Experimental Design
Reversal, multiple baseline, alternating treatments, and what each design can establish.
Ethical and Professional Issues
The Ethics Code in practice, including supervision, dual relationships, and reporting.
Behavior Assessment
Indirect and descriptive assessment, functional analysis, and picking a target worth changing.
Behavior-Change Procedures
Shaping, chaining, differential reinforcement, prompting, fading, and the procedures you will implement daily.
Selecting and Implementing Interventions
Choosing among procedures, planning for generalization, and maintenance.
Personnel Supervision and Management
Training staff, performance monitoring, and behavioral systems analysis.
This is BCBA material. Every concept page is written against the BCBA 6th-edition Test Content Outline. The BCaBA exam has its own separate content outline, and this material is not written to it.
Reading Is Not Studying
Test the concept
Understanding a term when you read it is not the same as recognizing it in a question stem written to mislead you. Practice items carry a rationale for every option.
See a real questionCheck your coverage
Content coverage is one of the eight readiness signals, so working through a neglected domain moves your score for a reason you can see.
How readiness is scoredStart with the concepts
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