BCBA Exam Preperation 

Three Levels of Scientific Understanding

Science: "a systematic approach to the understanding of natural phenomena (as evidenced by description, prediction, and control) that relies on determinism as its fundamental assumption, empiricism as its primary rule, experimentation as its basic strategy, replication as a requirement for believability, parsimony as a value, and philosophic doubt as its guiding conscience."

In the case of applied behavior analysis, the goal of science is to gain an understanding of socially important behavior change. The three levels of understanding of science are description, prediction, and control.

Description: is the most basic level of understanding of science in behavior analysis. Description is the knowledge of an event of phenomenon that allows us to form hypotheses or predictions of research. Although description does not attempt to draw correlations, or establish functional relationships, description is a foundational aspect of ABA practice. Description includes the facts about events that can be observed, measured, and examined.

Prediction: is the second level of scientific understanding in Applied Behavior Analysis. Prediction occurs when repeated observations start to indicate a correlation between the two events. Although causation is not established with prediction, it is an essential step in setting up an experiment to establish experimental control. Prediction occurs when one event tends to happen in the presence of another event. If you see sunshine and grab sunglasses, those two things are correlated.

Control: is the highest level of scientific understanding. To establish control, independent variables must be manipulated leading to a change in the dependent variable. Repeated manipulation of variables can establish more and more experimental control (or a functional relationship). Although true causation is difficult to prove, control is the most effective way to identify possible causation between two events. We use control in behavior analysis to determine the effectiveness of our interventions and treatments.

Cooper J.O, Heron T.E, Heward W.L. Applied behavior analysis (2nd ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson; 2007. [Google Scholar]