MBU is partnering with PsychCore, an Applied Behavior Analysis education company co-founded by Assistant Professor Ryan Sain, and Brad Bishop, M.Ed. to provide innovative and high-quality test-prep materials at no cost to students or the university
MBU is partnering with PsychCore, an Applied Behavior Analysis education company co-founded by Assistant Professor Ryan Sain, and Brad Bishop, M.Ed. to provide innovative and high-quality test-prep materials at no cost to students or the university
Mary Baldwin offers a bachelor’s degree in Autism Studies & ABA as well as three graduate programs: a master of science, a post-bachelor’s certificate, and a post-master’s certificate, all in ABA.
Students matriculating through these programs are usually working toward passing the national board exam to become a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA). The exam is administered by the Behavior Analysis Certification Board (BACB) and, Sain says, “is a really difficult exam to achieve this BCBA title.”
“Students spend three to six months in intensive study using various test-prep tools to prepare for this exam. Everything you could imagine for memorizing this much content – mock tests, flash cards, group sessions, and more.”
Sain, who joined Mary Baldwin’s faculty three years ago, has been teaching ABA for more than 20 years and co-founded PsychCore with Brad Bishop, M.Ed., a BCBA based in the Pacific Northwest.
Psychcore was created to solve the problem students were facing in preparing for their board exams: confusing and unhelpful test-prep materials that failed to incorporate the instructive techniques that ABA has developed.
Through a partnership with PsychCore, MBU is offering a newly-developed test prep course called “Get Shaped” to all ABA graduate students (certifications and MS). In addition to saving a significant amount of money (BACB exam-prep materials usually cost between $200 and $600), students will receive what they think is the very best of ABA test preparation.
According to Sain, “PsychCore ‘uses the science to teach the science.’ Most test-prep programs don’t have a behaviorally-oriented component to them, but our systems weave it into the teaching at every level.”
How does PsychCore “use the science to teach the science?”
PsychCore’s prep course is named “Get Shaped”; a play on the term “shaping” that ABA experts use to describe a method of teaching their clients new skills in new environments. The name of the course hints at how PsychCore is innovating by incorporating the strategies developed within the ABA field to teach its rising members. Sain explains the process:
“Instead of just doing one mock exam, we have nine in three sections: Fluency, generalization, and discrimination. In the first exam, everything you need to pay attention to is bolded and highlighted. The second has about half of the important stuff highlighted, and the last has none of the content highlighted. This is a ‘fading’ procedure that also comes from ABA and, in this case, is used to help shape the behavior of taking behavior analytic type exams.”
Mary Baldwin students who pass their board exam and become BCBAs can work in a variety of fields. “The primary area is working with people with autism,” says Sain, “But ABA also functions in swaths of life across fields like mental health, job performance, sports, and others. I have mostly worked professionally helping businesses and other organizations succeed in achieving their goals.”
“It’s elevating, it’s so exciting, and it’s so cool to help Mary Baldwin students out like this. It’s especially great to raise the bar of study materials that students have access to.”