BCBA Experimental Design Practice Questions
Domain D of the BCBA Test Content Outline (6th ed.) · 13 of the 175 scored questions (7%)
185 questions across all nine domains in 4 hours, with a score for experimental design so you know where you stand.
Free experimental design drillWhich question addresses the internal validity of a study?
Experimental Design on the BCBA
Experimental Design is 13 of the 175 scored questions. It tests whether you can tell whether an intervention caused a change in behavior: identifying independent and dependent variables, spotting threats to internal validity, and choosing, reading and critiquing single-case designs.
- Share of the exam
- 13 of 175 scored questions (7%) on every exam form
- Outline tasks
- 9 (D.1 to D.9)
- Our drill
- 10 questions from 40 experimental design questions, untimed, an explanation after every answer; one free attempt, unlimited with a pass
What experimental design questions test
- Dependent and independent variables, and internal versus external validity (tasks D.1–D.2)
- Threats to internal validity: history, maturation, testing, instrumentation, regression, sequence effects and others (task D.3)
- Defining features of single-case designs: individuals as their own controls, repeated measurement, and the baseline logic of prediction, verification and replication (task D.4)
- Strengths of single-case designs versus group designs (task D.5)
- Critiquing and interpreting single-case data (task D.6)
- Reversal, multiple-baseline, multielement and changing-criterion designs, and when each one fits (task D.7)
- Comparative, component and parametric analyses (task D.8)
- Applying single-case designs to real clinical questions (task D.9)
Sit the full exam under the real clock
185 questions across all nine domains in 4 hours, with a score for experimental design so you know where you stand.
Free experimental design drillHow to study it
- For each design, learn what demonstrates control and what makes it a poor choice. A reversal design is a poor fit for behavior that will not reverse, such as a newly learned skill.
- In a multiple-baseline design, the untreated baselines provide verification. If a baseline changes before the intervention reaches it, control is in doubt.
- Learn the three kinds of analysis as questions: which intervention works better (comparative), which part of a package does the work (component), and how much of it is needed (parametric).
- Practice describing data in words, as the exam does: level, trend, variability and immediacy of effect.
Common questions
Which experimental designs are on the BCBA exam?
Task D.7 names reversal, multiple-baseline, multielement and changing-criterion designs. Expect questions that describe a study or a data pattern and ask which design was used, whether it shows experimental control, or which design fits a clinical question.
What is the difference between internal and external validity?
Internal validity is how confident you can be that the independent variable, and not something else, produced the change in behavior. External validity is how far the result generalizes to other people, settings and behaviors. Single-case designs establish external validity through replication.
185 questions across all nine domains in 4 hours, with a score for experimental design so you know where you stand.
Free experimental design drillThe other BCBA domains
Sources
Original practice questions for exam preparation, written to the BACB’s BCBA Test Content Outline (6th ed.) and the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts (2022). Independent practice, not affiliated with or endorsed by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). BCBA® and BACB® are registered trademarks of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board.