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Follow-Up
Commentary on Training Behavior Analysts
Richard W. Malott
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In Response to Baer
Read
In Response to Johnston
In
Response to Reid (1992)
Should We Try Harder
to Produce Productive Practitioner/Researchers?
Reid agrees that we have a low rate of producing productive researchers;
however, he suggests the goal of producing productive practitioner/researchers
justifies trying harder. Then these practitioner/researchers could
tell the false from the true when they read nonrigorous applied literature.
Our past failure in large-scale science training offers little support
for its optimistic perspective. Wouldn’t it be more cost effective
for the Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA) to publish an annual
review of the best and the worst from the literature outside of JABA?
Instead of encouraging more JABA-type research, why not train behavior
analysts to involve everyone in behavioral systems analyses and interventions?
This would directly enhance the achievement of the agency’s
mission as well as produce the side benefits of enhancing service
provision skills of the participants and increasing their general
professional activities. In other words, I think we can accomplish
Reid’s objectives more cost effectively than by trying harder
at continuing variations of the scientist/practitioner model.
Would It Suffice to Try Harder in Training Practitioner/Researchers?
If we could teach science more reliably, then it would be less wasteful
to continue to try to do so. We should train our graduates to solve
agency problems; that is the essence of behavioral systems analysis.
But usually it will not be cost effective to solve the problem and
also establish the truth about what intervention, if any, was responsible
for the removal of the problem.
For those few graduates who will try to emulate Reid’s model
of productive publishing in an applied setting, his training program
is exemplary: (a) train skills directly related to doing research
in applied settings where you live and get paid; (b) have students
do research internships in such settings with a master researcher
(I recommend Reid); (c) have the faculty do sabbaticals in such settings
with a master researcher (I recommend Reid). But the major problem
is that there are not enough Reids to begin to meet the need (I recommend
that students and faculty start queuing at Reid’s door). In
short, I agree that those faculty and departments with a fighting
chance of success should try harder, but trying harder is not a practical
solution for most graduate training programs. Furthermore,a plan to
try harder is not an excuse for continuing the mediocre efforts of
most faculty and departments at training would-be scientists or scientist/practitioners.
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back to introduction
Read
In Response to Baer
Read
In Response to Johnston
