A Review of Applied Goal Setting Studies in the Behavior Analytic Literature (1990-2022)

McLucas et al. (2025) read every behavior-analytic study from 1990-2022 that used goal setting with workers. They found 46 papers and pulled out how goals were written, tracked, and measured.

The team coded study type, job setting, and goal features. They wanted a clear map of how our field has used goals to boost staff performance.

The review gives the first full picture of goal setting in OBM. It shows which goal tactics appear most often and where gaps still sit.

Details on goal size, feedback style, and who set the goal are all in one table. You can quickly see what has (and has not) been tried.

Bahry et al. (2024) extend these ideas to clinical work. They trained BCBAs to write better goals for autistic clients and saw quick gains. McLucas shows the workplace side; Bahry shows we can port the same fixing tools to treatment plans.

Leif et al. (2024) scanned JABA social-validity reports and found most came as short after-study surveys. McLucas found similar thin checks in OBM goal studies. Together they signal a field-wide habit: we rarely ask users how goals feel until the project is over.

MSáez-Suanes et al. (2023) say BCBA supervision research is mostly talk, little data. McLucas echoes the point for goal setting: lots of plans, few experiments. Both papers push us to run tighter intervention studies instead of just describing what we did.

If you supervise staff, write performance plans, or sit on a quality team, this map saves you from reinventing the wheel. You can copy the goal formats that already have support and spot the blanks (like long-term maintenance or social validity) for your next study. Try adding a brief social-validity check before and after your next goal rollout; McLucas and Leif both show we almost never do it, yet it takes only minutes.