Practice question
Behaviorism and Philosophical Foundations

Use observable and environmental explanations when evaluating behavior.

Original BCBA scenario practice question with answer explanation and wrong-choice notes.

Question

Difficulty: hard. Skill: analyze. Type: concept discrimination.

In a elementary classroom, a team says the participant engages in screaming because the learner is "manipulative." What is the most behavior-analytic next step? The caregiver asks for a rationale that can be written in the treatment note.

A
Accept the label because the team knows the learner well
B
Operationally define the behavior and assess environmental events before and after it

Correct answer

C
Ignore all caregiver and staff input
D
Select an intervention based only on the label

Explanation

Answer B

A behavior-analytic approach replaces explanatory labels with operational definitions and assessment of environmental variables.

Why the other choices are weaker

A
Choice A

Labels may describe impressions, but they do not identify observable behavior-environment relations.

C
Choice C

Reports can guide assessment even though they are not a substitute for behavioral analysis.

D
Choice D

Intervention should follow assessment of observable behavior and relevant variables.

Study tags

BehaviorismPragmatismEnvironmental Variables

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