Are We Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places? Comment on Dixon et al.

Detrich (2015) wrote a short comment paper. He pushed back on Dixon and colleagues. They had used faculty publication counts to rank BACB-approved training programs.

Ronnie said one number cannot capture program quality. He asked the field to look at student outcomes, supervision style, and other lived metrics.

The paper found nothing empirical. Instead it made a stance: low faculty pubs do not equal a weak program. Good programs can graduate great clinicians even if the professors rarely publish.

Austin et al. (2015) published the same reply in the same year. Both papers tell readers to stop worshipping the h-index and start watching learner gains.

Bottema-Beutel et al. (2021) widen the lens. Their audit showed that most ABA autism studies hide clinical conflicts of interest. Low transparency, not low output, may be the bigger threat to quality.

Meyer (1999) beat the same drum earlier. He told analysts to drop p-values when single-subject graphs speak for themselves. Together the four papers form a chorus: question the easy metric and pick richer ones.

When you pick a practicum site, hire new faculty, or design CEU events, look past publication totals. Ask about BCBA pass rates, client outcomes, and supervision fidelity. Reward programs that teach practical skills, not just the ones with long CVs.