Assessments
The PBAAC® is committed to providing the highest quality certification examinations based on proven industry standards through ongoing development procedures and psychometric review.
Candidates are required to successfully pass two assessments that are designed to evaluate knowledge and competency in overseeing individuals who practice a progressive approach to ABA as a treatment method for ASD. These are a multiple-choice examination and a competency demonstration assessment. The multiple-choice examination is administered by computer-based testing. The competency demonstration assessment consists of the candidate creating a video and submitting it for scoring.
The Multiple-Choice Examination
The multiple-choice examination is a timed computer-based examination consisting of 100 questions designed to measure a candidate’s knowledge of the principles identified in the CPBA-AI Content Outline. Of the 100 questions, 90 will be scored to determine the candidate’s outcome. Some of the questions have accompanying videos to be viewed before selecting an answer. Sample questions can be found here.
A summary of the content outline for the exam can be found in the Candidate Handbook. It lists the percentage of the test covered by each of the five content areas, also called domains. For the complete examination content outline, go to https://progressivebehavioranalyst.org/exam-content-outline-ai/
The CPBA-AI Competency Demonstration Assessment
This performance assessment requires candidates to submit a video of their own making that is between 5 – 10 minutes for evaluation by at least two trained and calibrated raters. The demonstration must be of teaching a client a skill using a progressive approach to discrete trial teaching (DTT) that includes the use of prompting. The candidate ’s skills that are evaluated consist of:
- General Teaching Methods
- Providing Instructions
- Providing Prompting
- Providing Consequences
- Clinical Judgment
The skills are placed on a rating rubric with performance examples for: Below Standard, Proficient (Meets Standard), and Exemplary. The raters independently review the candidate materials using the rubric to make their ratings.
If the overall scores from two raters do not result in a unanimous pass or fail decision, a third rater is assigned by an administrator. The third rater does not have access to the other ratings. The pass or fail decision is based on the agreement of two out of the three raters. The scoring process takes approximately 30 days, and the results are delivered to candidates via email.