• Behavior Analyst Burnout Assessment Tool

    Welcome to defy's Behavior Analyst Burnout Assessment Tool. The goal of this assessment is to help Behavior Analysts identify areas they may be experiencing burnout in using a function-based approach. The tool is designed to be completed in 10 minutes or less. All Behavior Analysts, regardless of tenure, are invited to participate.

    The components of this assessment have been based on previously validated standards which have guided the creation of this assessment (citations for each component of the tool can be found here). Laymen’s terms have been provided via hover text for each question in order to address respondent fluency, but we ask that you adhere to the technological description for your response. Our continued process will, in-turn, yield the Behavior Analyst Burnout Assessment Tool as a validated instrument, which allow you to evaluate your experience with burnout using conceptually-systematic language.

    The insights that you provide will help to create an empirically-supported assessment that provides indicators of burnout in our industry. Following the assessment, you will gain immediate access to our proprietary burnout resource library. Additionally, we encourage you to opt-in with your email address in order to access our disseminated baseline results regarding burnout in the ABA industry.

    Our goal is to develop evidenced-based solutions to fight against burnout and we thank you for your time, insight, and candor. Together we can truly move toward better living through behavior analysis.

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  • Demographics

  • Country*
  • Gender*
  • Ethnicity*

  • Education & Employment

  • I work for a company that is...*
  • Company's primary funding source*
  • Primary Work Setting*
  • Secondary Work Setting*
  • I am satisfied with my work conditions*
  • I am provided with continuing education opportunities in my workplace*
  • I am provided with continuing education opportunities in my workplace on a*
  • I am satisfied with my salary*

  • Health and wellness

  • Self-Care Assessment

    This section will ask about behaviors related to self-care, based on five dimensions, adapted from the Self-Care Assessment for Psychologists. Laymen’s terms have been provided via hover text for each question in order to address respondent fluency, but we ask that you adhere to the technological description for your response.

  • Professional Support

  • I have salient SD(s) to engage in work-related vocal verbal behavior with my colleagues (e.g., office conversation, phone/Zoom call).*
  • When there is the option to work in the same physical or virtual space as my colleagues, I choose this option.*
  • I engage in vocal verbal behavior with my professional colleagues on the topics of high response effort tasks (stressful tasks) at work. These tasks may also function as aversive, positive punishers, or occur under a thin schedule of reinforcement.*
  • I engage in vocal verbal behavior with my colleagues at an interval that satiates the motivating operation and also prevents aversive establishing operations.*
  • I have a salient SD(s) for questions and feedback from individuals with an enriched learning history (e.g. supervisor, boss, manager, BCBA in a leadership role, operations manager) in my workplace environment.*

  • Professional Development

  • I engage in non-required activities or events that teach new skills to enhance my performance in the workplace.*
  • I read and discuss emails, engage in group meetings, and/or social media groups that host professional affiliates regarding my most preferred topics voluntarily.*
  • I attend social and community events based on a history of socially mediated reinforcement, not directly under the control of my employer.*
  • I engage with various mediums and topics that expose me to novel stimuli, concepts, and behavioral technology that directly apply to my job. The skills modeled in these professional activities generalize to my work setting.*
  • I allocate more time to professional activities with a denser history of reinforcement.*
  • I spend more than half of my time in the presence of people who function as discriminative stimuli with a history of reinforcement for my behaviors of both speaking and listening.*

  • Life Balance

  • I am able to spend time with my family or friends, such that satiates the motivating operation.*
  • I engage in behavior or spend time in environments with a history of automatic or socially-mediated reinforcement.*
  • I have a self-imposed ratio or interval of opportunities to engage with people who act as reinforcers (friends, loved ones, etc.) that satiate the motivating operation.*

  • Cognitive Awareness

  • I am able to tact my private events that may act as motivating operations for the addition or removal of stimuli.*
  • I can tact the role my private events may have on behavior with clients.*
  • I can tact and escape or avoid various stimuli that are correlated with aversive private events that impact my professional behavior.*
  • I self-monitor the amount of time and the level of response effort to engage in workplace tasks/activities.*

  • Daily Balance

  • I intentionally pause work-related tasks and engage in alternate behavior not related to work at least twice a day.*
  • Each day, I create time to return to a state of homeostasis, in which there is an absence of arousal, particularly from negative stimuli such as anger, anxiety, or fear.*
  • I avoid ratio strain by adhering to a set of rules regarding how many work tasks I can complete per day/week/month.*

  • Work Engagement

    This section will ask about your behaviors related to work engagement, adapted from the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. Laymen’s terms have been provided via hover text for each question in order to address respondent fluency, but we ask that you adhere to the technological description for your response.
  • My work environment is correlated with increases in my energy levels, and shapes and maintains behaviors that are resistant to extinction.*
  • The likelihood that I will continue responding to the SD (e.g., my job) is more than not because I have a stronger history of positive reinforcement with said SD (e.g., work).*
  • Overall, task completion as a reinforcer outweighs aversive stimuli and other punishment contingencies that could evoke escape behavior at work.*

  • Exhaustion & Disengagement

    This final section will ask about exhaustion and disengagement levels in the workplace, adapted from the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory. Laymen’s terms have been provided via hover text for each question in order to address respondent fluency, but we ask that you adhere to the technological description for your response.

  • Disengagement

  • I identify novel reinforcing stimuli in my work environment at an interval that sustains my responding.*
  • My private behavior (thoughts) frequently differs from the public work responses I am engaging in. I no longer engage in problem-solving thoughts or novel solutions that could enhance my workplace.*
  • The tasks I am given to complete function as an EO to identify/create solutions at work, and there are little-to-no aversive contingencies in place.*
  • The reinforcers in my job tasks are put on extinction or contact ratio strain, which leads to neutral/apathetic private and public responding in the workplace.*
  • The reinforcement rate at my current job is higher than any other job I would apply for.*
  • I am able to self-manage my schedules in such a way that results in completing my tasks in a timely manner.*
  • I have noted an increasing trend in my work-related responding and corresponding rate of reinforcement.*

  • Exhaustion

  • My workplace can function as a CMO-R, meaning work signals as a worsening of conditions. Possible presentations include physiological responses such as fatigue, headache, or pain not otherwise explained by another condition.*
  • I have noted an increasing trend in my vocal behavior about my work environment and/or work tasks that is correlated with aversive stimuli.*
  • I have noted an increasing trend in the conditioned stress responses initiated at work (increase heart rate, sweating hands, shallow breaths, headaches, etc.) that continue even after I return to the home environment.*
  • The percentage of novel/high response effort tasks completed before/at the deadline is the same as low response effort tasks.*
  • The latency of my work completion has increased due to competing contingencies or a diminishing value of reinforcement.*
  • Time spent at work does not function as an AO for leisure activities at home. I am able to complete the desired number of tasks at work, as well as leisure activities at home.*
  • My work tasks function as aversive stimuli that can elicit nausea, activation syndrome, etc.*
  • My workplace results in punishing contingencies that include psychosomatic effects (private events: headache, exhaustion, etc.).*
  • When I am at work, I contact a frequent amount of positive reinforcement that includes private events correlated with increased energy.*
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