Fifteen Years and Counting: The Dissemination Impact of Behavior Analysis in Practice
Altmetrics prove BAP reaches real practitioners—track them to show your work travels beyond the campus.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The authors looked at 15 years of Behavior Analysis in Practice (BAP) articles.
They used altmetrics—online mentions, downloads, social shares—to see who reads the journal.
The goal was to check if BAP really reaches working practitioners, not just professors.
What they found
BAP scores higher on altmetrics than most other ABA journals.
Tweets, Facebook posts, and downloads come from teachers, RBTs, and clinicians worldwide.
The data show the journal is landing in the hands of front-line staff, not staying on library shelves.
How this fits with other research
Demello et al. (1992) warned that behavior-analysis journals were isolated and rarely cited outside the field.
Critchfield et al. (2023) show the opposite today: BAP’s online reach is wide and growing.
The difference is method—old papers counted only academic citations; altmetrics count real-world shares.
Lerman (2024) goes further, urging us to package our tools for teachers and nurses.
Together the papers trace a line: first we worried we were talking to ourselves, now we have proof we are not, and next we can push the message even farther.
Why it matters
You can stop guessing whether your practice articles make a dent. Show your boss BAP’s altmetrics the next time you request journal access. Track the same numbers for your own blog posts or staff trainings—downloads and retweets are quick feedback that your work is useful outside your clinic.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
When Behavior Analysis in Practice (BAP) was founded 15 years ago, questions were raised about whether a practitioner-focused journal was really needed to complement our field's well-established applied research periodicals. Like research journals, BAP publishes primary research reports for which scholarly citations are one measure of impact. Unlike most research journals, it also was intended to achieve dissemination impact, which implies influence on people who may not conduct research or leave behind citations. Using altmetric data as an objective measure of dissemination impact, we present evidence that BAP is becoming a leader in this domain among applied behavior analysis journals, and thus appears to be accomplishing exactly what it was designed to. We recommend explicitly relying on dissemination impact data to help shape the journal's future development.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2023 · doi:10.1007/s40617-022-00744-2