A Systematic Review of Supervision Research Related to Board Certified Behavior Analysts

MSáez-Suanes et al. (2023) searched every BCBA supervision paper they could find. They set strict rules: only studies about supervising Board Certified Behavior Analysts, published in English, peer-reviewed.

The team read 1,247 titles. They kept 52. Most were essays or how-to guides. Only a handful tested supervision like an intervention.

Four out of five papers were opinion pieces. Just nine used real data. No study ran a true experiment with control groups.

In short, we talk about supervising BCBAs a lot, but we almost never check what actually works.

Falligant et al. (2025) did run an experiment. They showed group BST plus in-situ feedback works. Their single-case design is exactly the kind of study MP et al. say we need more of.

Zayac et al. (2021) and Callahan et al. (2019) surveyed BCBAs and found soft skills like empathy matter. These surveys give us targets to test, but they are still just descriptions, not experiments.

LeBlanc et al. (2016) wrote the last big supervision map. It was a narrative review—more opinions. MP et al. now supersede that work by using systematic rules and showing the same gap still exists seven years later.

If you supervise BCBAs, you are flying mostly blind. Stop relying on old blog posts. Start collecting data on your own supervision: count how often you give feedback, track supervisee mastery, run simple AB designs. One small graph each month beats another opinion paper.