ABA Faculty Q&A

Thanks for agreeing to take part. We’re building an interview series on AppliedBehaviorAnalysisEdu.org that puts real voices from behavior analysis programs in front of the people trying to choose one.

Prospective students can find a course list anywhere. What they cannot get is a straight answer about how supervised fieldwork actually works, how supervision gets arranged and paid for, or what separates someone who passes the BCBA exam from someone who is ready to practice. That has to come from a person teaching in the program.

That is the part only you can answer.

What we’re asking for

About 10 to 15 minutes. The questions are grouped by topic. The last group is optional, for anyone who has more to say, so answer what’s useful and skip anything that doesn’t apply. A short paragraph per group is plenty.

We’re after substance, not polish. We’re gathering more responses than the series can hold, so we can’t promise to publish every one. The ones we do publish appear in their own section under your name, credentials and job title, with a link to your faculty profile, and you’ll get a direct link to share.

Filling out the form

Everything marked required needs an answer, and both consent boxes at the bottom need ticking. The Submit button stays greyed out until they are, so if it looks inactive, scroll down to the consent boxes.

There’s no save and resume. If you’d rather not do it in one sitting, draft your answers somewhere else first and paste them in. The full question list is below.

What happens after you submit

  1. You’ll get an email confirming we received your answers, with a copy of what you submitted for your records.
  2. We read every response. We can’t publish all of them, so this isn’t a guarantee. If yours is going into the series, we’ll send you a direct link once it’s live.
  3. If we publish, your answers appear substantially as you’ve written them. If you want to change something, or you’d rather we didn’t publish after all, just reply to your confirmation email. That goes for after publication too.

We may fix the odd typo. We won’t change what you’ve said.

Want to draft your answers first?

See all questions

About you

  • Your name, exactly as you’d like it published
  • Your email
  • Your credentials
  • Your job title
  • University
  • Link to your faculty profile page (optional)
  • Headshot (optional)
  • Which programs or concentrations do you teach in
  • Program formats offered
  • Course sequence status

Who thrives

  1. When a student struggles in your program, what’s usually behind it?
  2. Is that something they could have known or prepared for before enrolling?
  3. Beyond grades and test scores, what qualities tend to predict a strong practitioner?
  4. Passing the BCBA exam and being ready to practice aren’t the same thing. How does your program prepare students for each?
  5. Students coming from teaching, psychology, or unrelated careers: what strengths and blind spots do they tend to bring?

Fieldwork, supervision, and cost

  1. How do your students typically find fieldwork placements?
  2. How is supervision usually arranged: through an employer, paid out of pocket, or built into the program?
  3. Where do students most often hit snags on the way to their required hours?
  4. How are students handling the BACB’s 2027 fieldwork changes if their timelines cross that date?
  5. How do your students actually pay for this program, and what do applicants tend to underestimate about the cost?

The work itself

  1. What do incoming students most often misunderstand about day-to-day work as a behavior analyst? Examples might be supervising RBTs, writing treatment plans and insurance authorizations, or working with families and schools.
  2. Where do your graduates actually end up practicing? Beyond early autism services, think adult services, schools, organizational behavior management, brain injury, or other settings.

Where the field is heading

  1. The field is having serious conversations about assent, compassionate care, and what autistic adults have said about their own experiences with ABA. How does that show up in your teaching and supervision?
  2. How should a new behavior analyst handle it when an employer’s model or a payer’s hour requirements pull against that kind of care?

If you have more to say (optional)

  1. If a prospective student were comparing several ABA programs, including yours, what should they ask every one of them that they probably wouldn’t think to ask?
  2. What’s something about this work that you’ve never seen in a program brochure but every future behavior analyst should hear before starting?

The questionnaire

    Program formats offered (required)

    Course sequence status (required)

    The questions

    The questions are grouped by topic. 4 groups are required and the last is optional, so answer what's useful and skip anything that doesn't apply. A short paragraph per group is plenty.

    Before you submit

    Both boxes below need to be ticked before the Submit button becomes active. If the button looks greyed out, that's why.

    Questions about any of this?

    Email us at [email protected] and we’ll get back to you. You can ask us to update or remove your Q&A at any time after it’s published.