The more we get together: Communities of practice for behaviour analysts.

Abstract

With limited opportunities for peer-to-peer interaction and formal training outside of conferences or fee-for-service workshops, some behaviour analysts may find it challenging to acquire and maintain important clinical and professional competencies. Time constraints, heavy caseloads, deficient professional networks, and limited organizational resources may lead some clinicians to conduct outdated, unsupported, or contextually inappropriate assessment and treatment procedures. Although the effectiveness of behavioural skills training for teaching specific skills to behaviour analysts is well established in the literature, it can be time consuming and may not be feasible to develop every skill that practitioners need to stay competent in their areas of practice. In contrast, communities of practice are flexible peer-based groups that facilitate learning through repeated engagement in joint activities. We first evaluated self-reports of participant satisfaction and then evaluated pre-and posttest scores on 3 practice topics to determine the utility of the community of practice meetings. Results showed that behaviour analysts responded favorably to membership and that participation in the sampled community of practice meetings led to improvements in all targeted skills. This article explores the concept of community of practice and its potential utility for behaviour analysts. Public Significance StatementIt has been suggested that practicing behaviour analysts may find it difficult to set aside time from their busy schedules to learn and/or maintain important professional skills. In this study, we found that a community of practice meeting (i.e., a peer-based group that facilitates learning on practicebased topics) produced an increase in three important skills for practicing behaviour analysts.

Branching Out: Finding Success in New Areas of Practice

“…The idea is that the group can accelerate individual learning and technologies developed by freely sharing with others. Of course, this requires that some of the members of the group have more advanced training and skills to lead and support others, but it could be a good strategy for finding additional support when entering new practice areas (Busch et al, 2020).…”