Supervision for Aspiring Behaviour Analysts in Australia: An Exploration of Current Practices, Challenges, and Opportunities
Australian BCBAs show supervision is messy but fixable—steal their wished-for remote groups, shared toolkits, and objective scoring to tighten your own trainee pipeline.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Bayley et al. (2023) sent an online survey to every Board Certified Behavior Analyst in Australia. They asked how supervision is run, what hurts it, and what could help. The team tallied the answers to map real-world supervision down under.
What they found
Supervision methods vary widely. Some mentors meet face-to-face, others use Zoom, many mix both. Biggest pain points: lack of time, scant resources, and long travel distances. Respondents want shared toolkits, group remote meetings, and clearer guidance.
How this fits with other research
Liddon et al. (2024) ran a similar survey across several countries and saw the same squeeze: clinic pressures, not bad will, block trainees from earning unrestricted hours. The two studies echo each other; geography changes but the headache stays.
Valentino et al. (2024) give a next-step fix. They built a simple calculator that scores supervisor behaviors from videos with high reliability. Bayley’s paper shows inconsistency; Valentino hands you an objective ruler to standardize it.
Beaulieu et al. (2019) found most BCBAs value cultural training yet receive almost none. Bayley’s data hint at the same gap in Australia. Pair the papers and you see supervision weak on both logistics and cultural content.
Why it matters
If you supervise or plan to, borrow the fixes Australian BCBAs beg for: run group remote supervision to save travel time, build a shared Google Drive of lesson plans, and use Valentino’s calculator to keep your own skills on target. Add Leland et al. (2019) TGNC self-assessment to ensure each lesson is inclusive. Small structural tweaks can rescue hours and quality at once.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Effective supervision is a key component of the development of effective and ethical behavior analytic repertoires. However, the provision of supervision may be challenging in countries where behavior analysis is an emerging profession and there are few qualified practitioners. We conducted a mixed-methods survey study to examine the supervision practices of board certified behavior analysts (BCBAs) in Australia, and perceived challenges related to the provision of supervision. Respondents reported using a variety of supervisory practices to meet the demand for supervision, but a lack of time, resources, and geographical location posed challenges. Based on these findings, we provide several recommendations for addressing identified challenges. Although each recommendation has been contextualized to meet the needs of the Australian behavior analytic community, these recommendations may be useful in other parts of the world where behavior analysis is an emerging profession or there are few BCBAs to meet the needs of a growing behavior analytic workforce.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2023 · doi:10.1007/s40617-022-00739-z