BACB task list 6th edition — what it is called now, what changed, and how to pass the exam built on it

The task list is now the Test Content Outline

If you are searching for the BACB task list 6th edition, you are looking for a document that was published under a different name. When the Behavior Analyst Certification Board announced the new editions in February 2022, it said the BCBA and BCaBA task lists would from then on be called test content outlines, or TCOs.⁴ The content sections, previously "content areas" grouped under Foundations and Applications, are now simply nine lettered domains.

The reason for the rename matters more than the rename itself. Over two decades the task list had picked up jobs it was never designed for: universities built curricula around it, supervisors used it as a fieldwork checklist, and candidates treated it as a complete map of behaviour analysis. The BACB's own explanation is that the document's primary purpose is to say what the exam covers, that it is not a university curriculum or a fieldwork curriculum, and that plenty of necessary content sits outside it.⁴ The new name is a deliberate narrowing.

Three outlines are current:

• BCBA Test Content Outline (6th ed.) — the basis of the BCBA exam since 1 January 2025.¹⁴
• BCaBA Test Content Outline (6th ed.) — the basis of the BCaBA exam since 1 January 2025.²⁴
• RBT Test Content Outline (3rd ed.) — the basis of the RBT exam since 1 January 2026, replacing the RBT Task List (2nd ed.).⁵

Both 6th editions came out of a 2021 job task analysis run with Pearson VUE psychometricians, in which 13,783 BCBAs and 821 BCaBAs rated every draft task. The BACB board accepted both outlines in December 2021 — three years before they took effect.⁴

One structural change sits underneath all of this. The BACB said in the same announcement that exams and outlines would from now on be updated independently of eligibility requirements, so content can change more often than it used to.⁴ There is no 7th edition announced, but there is no promise the 6th will last as long as the 5th did.

The BCBA 6th edition, domain by domain

The BCBA outline has nine domains, 104 tasks and a published question count for each domain. The exam has 185 questions, of which 175 are scored and 10 are unscored pilot questions you cannot identify.¹⁷ This table is the single most useful study document you have, and the right-hand column is one most guides do not show: how many scored questions each task carries on average.

Here is what that last column hides. Domain B has the most tasks in the outline, and most flashcard decks are built around it, but each of its 24 tasks is worth about one question. Each of the eight Behavior Assessment tasks is worth nearly three, and each of the seven supervision tasks nearly the same. A candidate who knows the concepts cold but has never designed a functional assessment, chosen between interventions with a real family's constraints, or run a supervision meeting is studying the cheap end of the exam.

The verbs changed too. The 5th edition asked you to "define and provide examples" of a concept; the 6th more often asks you to identify, distinguish, design, evaluate or select.⁴ That shifts the exam towards scenario questions in which the definition is assumed and the decision is what is being tested.

What changed from the 5th edition

The BCBA/BCaBA Task List (5th ed.) was published in 2017 and divided its content into two sections: Foundations (domains A to D) and Applications (E to I).³ The 6th edition keeps all nine domains, in the same order, with two retitled: Philosophical Underpinnings became Behaviorism and Philosophical Foundations, and Ethics became Ethical and Professional Issues.⁴ The two-section split is gone.

The BACB's own summary of the BCBA changes:⁴

• 92 tasks became 104, a net increase of 12.
• 9 tasks were removed, 10 were combined into 5, 9 were split into 19, and 13 were added.
• Ethics was rebuilt. The 5th edition's ethics section had 7 entries that pointed at whole sections of the ethics code. The 6th edition has 12 specific ethics and professional-issues tasks.
• Diversity, equity and inclusion content was written into 8 tasks across 4 domains rather than added as a domain of its own.

The 13 new BCBA tasks are worth listing, because they are where older prep material is most likely to be silent.⁴

The bigger change is not in the tasks but in the question counts, which the BACB published side by side for both editions.⁴

Read the table as three groups. Concepts and Principles plus Behavior-Change Procedures — the "know the science" core — dropped from ⁶⁷ questions to ⁴⁹, even though Concepts gained nine tasks. Ethics, Assessment, Interventions and Supervision — the "do the job" domains — rose from ⁶⁹ to ⁸⁴. Philosophy, measurement and design moved from 39 to 42. The exam did not get longer; it moved about 10% of its weight from knowing to deciding.

The practical consequence for anyone holding older material: a 5th-edition mock exam over-tests concepts and procedures and under-tests the domains that now carry the most questions per task. If a prep provider cannot show you its 6th-edition mapping, assume it does not have one.

The BCaBA 6th edition outline

The assistant-level outline went through the same process and the same rename, with a smaller net change: 88 tasks became 90.⁴ Two domain titles changed more substantively than in the BCBA version — Selecting and Implementing Interventions became Intervention Development and Monitoring, and Personnel Supervision and Management became Supervisory Relationships — which tells you how the BACB now sees the BCaBA role: someone who develops and monitors programmes under a BCBA and supervises technicians, rather than a manager of staff.²⁴

The six new BCaBA tasks are dimensions of behaviour (C.1), mastery criteria (C.10), cultural humility (E.9), behavioural persistence (G.12), supervisory relationships (I.2) and equity in supervision (I.3). Ethics went from 7 entries to 11 specific tasks, and DEI content was written into 6 tasks across 3 domains.⁴

The shift is sharper than on the BCBA side. Behavior-Change Procedures lost 13 questions — more than a third of its weight — while interventions, supervision, ethics and philosophy together gained 20. The BCaBA exam is 175 questions in 4 hours: 150 scored and 25 unscored pilot items.²⁶

The exam built on it

Both exams are taken in person, computer-based, at Pearson VUE centres (and on some US military bases), in English. There is no remote-proctored option.⁶

• BCBA: 185 questions (175 scored, 10 pilot), four options each, 4 hours. Pearson VUE charges $125 per appointment. After a fail you wait 30 days and pay a $140 retake application fee plus another $125 appointment, with up to 8 attempts in the two years after your application is approved.⁷
• BCaBA: 175 questions (150 scored, 25 pilot), 4 hours.²⁶
• Scoring: pass/fail, with the cut score set by a panel of certified experts using a modified Angoff method and scaled so the bar is the same on every form. A pass comes with nothing but the word. A fail comes with the percentage of questions you answered correctly in each domain — which, for the reason explained below, is the most valuable document a failing candidate receives.⁶

If your exam authorisation spans a change of edition, you test on whichever outline is current on the day. The Handbook says so in plain terms.⁷

Pass rates. The BACB publishes first-time and retake results each year. 2025 was the first full year on the 6th-edition outlines.⁶⁸

It is tempting to read the BCBA fall from 54% to 51% as the new outline's fault. The data do not support that cleanly. The BCBA rate was already sliding from 60% in 2021, and the BCaBA rate — on an outline that shifted its weighting even more — went up, from 54% to 60%. One year of data on a new blueprint is not a trend.

The figure that does explain a great deal is where candidates trained. In the BACB's 2025 university report, graduates of the 25 ABAI-accredited programmes passed first time at a mean of 79.3%; graduates of the other 179 programmes, 53.2%.⁸ The outline is the same for both groups. What differs is how much of the "decide and apply" content the training actually rehearsed.

And the retake figure is the one to remember before booking. In 2025 more BCBA candidates sat a retake (13,196) than sat the exam for the first time (9,955), and fewer than one in four passed.⁶ A first attempt is not a cheap diagnostic. Full costs, pathways and the 2027 eligibility rules are in the BCBA certification guide.

Coursework and fieldwork: what the outline does not govern

People searching for "applied behavior analysis certification" often assume the outline tells universities what to teach and supervisors what to supervise. It does not, and the BACB went out of its way to say so.⁴ In the current BCBA Handbook, the Test Content Outline is mentioned only in the examination section; the coursework and fieldwork rules stand on their own.⁷

Coursework is defined by content areas and hours, not by tasks. The current (2022) Pathway 2 structure is 315 hours, and the areas line up loosely with the outline's domains:⁷⁹

Two things follow. First, supervision and management get 11% of exam questions but only 30 of 315 coursework hours under the current structure — about 10% — and the 2027 structure raises that to 45 hours. Second, the assessment-and-intervention block is 105 hours now and 90 from 2027, while domains F, G and H together carry ⁶⁸ scored questions, almost 39% of the exam. If your programme front-loaded theory and treated assessment as one module, the gap will show on the score report.

Fieldwork is governed by hours, supervision percentages and activity types — 2,000 hours at 5% supervision or 1,500 concentrated, with at least 60% unrestricted activities — and nothing in the Handbook requires your fieldwork to "cover the task list".⁷ From 1 January 2027 concentrated supervision drops to 7.5%, the monthly cap rises from 130 to 160 hours, and client observation is counted in minutes.⁹ The detail, including the routes when a supervisor leaves, is in the supervision-hours guide.

Even so, the outline is the best fieldwork planning tool you have, for a reason the Handbook makes explicit: supervision is meant to develop case conceptualisation, problem-solving and decision-making, and to observe you with clients and give feedback.⁷ The 6th edition's heaviest domains per task — assessment, intervention selection, supervision — are exactly those unrestricted activities. A trainee who spends 1,200 of their 2,000 hours on unrestricted work that includes real assessments, real intervention decisions and supervising technicians is preparing for the exam while logging hours. One who spends the minimum on unrestricted work, mostly writing session notes, is not.

The RBT 3rd edition and the BACB competency assessment

The RBT credential went through the same rename a year later. From 1 January 2026 the RBT exam is built on the RBT Test Content Outline (3rd ed.), which replaced the RBT Task List (2nd ed.).⁵¹² It has six domains, and the exam is 85 questions (75 scored) in 90 minutes.⁶¹³ The full set of 2026 RBT changes — training, renewal, PDUs — is covered in the RBT certification guide.

That is also where the search term "bacb competency assessment" belongs. The BACB runs competency assessments for RBTs only. BCBAs and BCaBAs demonstrate competence through coursework, supervised fieldwork and the exam; there is no separate BACB competency assessment for either credential, initial or renewal.⁷¹²

Where BCBAs and BCaBAs do meet the competency assessment is on the other side of the table. A BCBA or BCaBA who has completed the 8-hour supervision training is the person who conducts it for technicians.¹² If you are interviewing for a role with RBT supervision on it, expect to be asked how you run one — and that question maps directly onto domain I of your own outline.

BACB CEUs and CEU requirements

The outline governs the exam you pass once. Continuing education governs everything after it, and the two are not linked: you do not need CEUs "in" particular outline domains. The BACB CEU requirements are set by credential and by recertification date.¹⁰¹¹

Three details catch people.

1. The extra supervision CEU attaches to your recertification date, not to when your cycle started. A BCBA whose cycle began in 2025 and ends in 2027 needs 4, not 3.⁹¹⁵
2. "Ethics" is wider than it was. Since March 2025, ethics CE covers events on the BACB's ethics requirements or on cultural and contextual responsiveness, as long as most of the event is on that content. The separate DEI CEU category that had been planned for 2027 was dropped.¹⁰
3. The renewal window is short. Recertification falls two years from your original certification date, and the work is meant to be done in the 45 days before it.¹¹

There is a practical overlap worth using. The 6th edition added tasks on cultural humility, equity in supervision and interpersonal skills — and those topics now earn ethics CEUs. A newly certified BCBA who chooses CE events on those subjects is renewing on the content the exam has just tested, which is also the content employers are increasingly asking about.

How to prepare, domain by domain

The BACB's own advice is short: review the Test Content Outline, the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts and your training materials. It does not endorse any study guide, and it says plainly that buying one does not guarantee a pass.⁷ It does publish sample score reports, and Pearson VUE offers a demo of the testing interface.⁶⁷ Everything else — mock exams, flashcards, courses — is a private market. That does not make it bad; it makes the outline the yardstick for judging it.

Allocate time by questions, not by tasks. Using the published counts, here is a plan for a typical 10 to 12 weeks of preparation.¹

An even split looks unremarkable, but most candidates spend half their time on concepts, because that is where the free material sits.

Mock exams. Use them for two things: timing and diagnosis. At 175 scored and 10 unscored questions in 240 minutes, you have about 78 seconds a question, and scenario items take longer than definitional ones. Sit at least two full-length timed mocks before the real thing. Check that the mock reports results by the nine 6th-edition domains; one that still reports by 5th-edition sections, or that weights concepts at 18% rather than 14%, is measuring the old exam.⁴

First attempt versus retake. The data point one way. First-time candidates passed at 51% in 2025; retake candidates at 23%.⁶ Part of that gap is selection, but part is habit: retakes rebooked the day the 30-day wait ends, with the same materials. If you do fail, the domain-by-domain percentages on your score report are the only official diagnostic you will ever get. Map them against the questions-per-domain table above, find the two domains that cost you the most questions, and rebuild those before rebooking — even if that means waiting longer than 30 days. Each retake costs $265 and one of your eight attempts.⁷

Choose material by the outline, not the brand. Five questions to ask any prep provider:

• Is the content mapped to the 104 tasks of the 6th edition, and can I see the mapping?
• Do the mock exams match the 6th-edition question count per domain?
• What proportion of practice items are scenario-based?
• Does it cover the 13 new tasks explicitly?
• Does it publish a pass rate for its users, and how is that number calculated?

What it means for job seekers

The outline is an exam document, but it shapes the job market in quieter ways. There were 88,013 BCBAs, 4,931 BCaBAs and 259,577 RBTs as of 1 October 2026.¹⁴ Every one of those technicians needs supervision from the first two groups, and the 6th edition's extra weight on supervision reflects that ratio.

If you are a trainee or "BCBA-eligible". Many organisations hire candidates who have finished coursework and fieldwork but not yet passed the exam, usually into a lower-titled role with a promise of promotion. Ask in the interview: is there paid study time, is there an internal study group or mock exam, does the organisation reimburse the $125 appointment or retake fees, and what happens to the role if the first attempt fails? With a 51% first-time pass rate, the last question is not pessimism; it is arithmetic. What a BCBA role should actually contain covers the rest of that conversation.

If you are a supervisor. The 6th edition is your trainees' exam, which makes it your problem. Supervisors who can map fieldwork activities to assessment, intervention and supervision tasks are rarer than supervisors who can sign hours, and organisations that care about their trainees' pass rates know the difference. Ask an employer how many of its trainees passed first time last year.

If you certified on the 5th edition. Nothing changes for you: certification is not re-tested, and the 6th edition does not apply to renewal. What does apply is the supervision CEU rising to 4 from 2027 and the broader ethics definition.⁹¹⁰ If you take on trainees, read the 6th edition anyway; their exam is not the one you sat.

If you are weighing BCaBA against BCBA. The BCaBA first-time pass rate (60% in 2025) is now higher than the BCBA's (51%), and the outline has been rebuilt around developing interventions and supervising technicians.²⁶ Where BCaBA openings actually are covers the demand side.

For BCBA pay, see what BCBAs actually earn in 2026; for where the openings sit by state and setting, the BCBA jobs guide; and for the hiring silence many new certificants run into, why applications go unanswered.

Sources

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   BACB — BCBA Test Content Outline, 6th editionwww.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BCBA-6th-Edi
2. 02
   BACB — BCaBA Test Content Outline, 6th editionwww.bacb.com/wp-content/bcaba-outline-6thEd/
3. 03
   BACB — BCBA Task List, 5th editionwww.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/BCBA-task-li
4. 04
   BACB — February 2022 newsletter: BCBA and BCaBA test content outlines (6th ed.)www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/BACB_Februar
5. 05
   BACB — Test content outlines for BACB certificationswww.bacb.com/test-content-outlines-for-bacb-certific
6. 06
   BACB — Examination information and pass rateswww.bacb.com/examination-information/
7. 07
   BACB — BCBA Handbook (updated May 2026)www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/BCBAHandbook
8. 08
   BACB — BCBA examination pass rates for university programs, 2025www.bacb.com/wp-content/bcba-pass-rates-2025/
9. 09
   BACB — 2027 BCBA requirements (updated February 2026)www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2027-BCBA-Re
10. 10
    BACB — March 2025 newsletter: 2027 requirements and ethics CEwww.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/BACB_March20
11. 11
    BACB — Tips for new certificants (updated January 2026)www.bacb.com/tips-for-new-certificants/
12. 12
    BACB — RBT 2026 requirementswww.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/RBT-2026-Req
13. 13
    BACB — RBT Test Content Outline, 3rd editionwww.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/RBT-3rd-Edit
14. 14
    BACB — Certificant data (as of 1 October 2026)www.bacb.com/bacb-certificant-data/
15. 15
    ABA CEU Network — BCBA supervision CEU requirements, 2026–2027 (October 2026)abaceunetwork.com/bcba-supervision-ceu-requirements