Behavioral practitioners and researchers often define skill acquisition in terms of meeting specific mastery criteria. Only 2 studies have systematically evaluated the impact of any dimension of mastery criteria on skill maintenance. Recent survey data indicate practitioners often adopt lower criterion levels than are found to reliably produce maintenance. Data regarding the mastery criteria adopted by applied researchers are not currently available. This study provides a descriptive comparison of mastery criteria reported in behavior-analytic research with that utilized by practitioners. Results indicate researchers are more likely to adopt higher levels of accuracy across fewer observations, whereas practitioners are more likely to adopt lower levels of accuracy across more observations. Surprisingly, a large amount of research (a) lacks technological descriptions of the mastery criterion adopted and (b) does not include assessments of maintenance following acquisition. We discuss implications for interpretations within and across research studies.

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Previous research has evaluated the effects of various commonly used mastery criteria on skill maintenance by directly manipulating the accuracy requirement, as well as the sessions across which these accuracy levels must be demonstrated. The current study extends this literature by including a rate dimension within the mastery criterion with a unique population. We implemented a fluency-oriented treatment package to increase intraverbal skills related to state sex laws using a multiple-baseline design across 3 target sets for 2 individuals adjudicated for illegal sexual behavior. Within this intervention package, we included 2 distinct components of a single mastery criterion: (a) accuracy (i.e., 100% accuracy across 3 consecutive sessions) and (b) speed. We evaluated how each of these measurable dimensions of behavior maintained across time. Results indicate this mastery criterion produced over 80% accuracy during maintenance probes for 10 weeks across all sets for both students. However, this mastery criterion produced idiosyncratic maintenance of rates across students and sets. These results suggest that each of these dimensions of behavior does not necessarily covary and should be conceptualized as distinct clinical targets by applied behavior clinicians.