The Effectiveness and Efficiency of Behavioral Consultation: Differing Perspectives About Epistemology and What We Know

The astute reader, after some study of the previous two articles, will note a fundamental difference: We (Witt, Gresham, & Noell, this issue) propose that data supporting the efficacy of behavioral consultation (BC) is such that we would categorize BC as 'Not Proven Effective' and Erchul and Schulte (this issue), with some qualification, argue that BC should be categorized as 'Proven Effective.' The differences between the two articles derive from important epistemological, logical, and philosophical differences about the accrual of data into a systematic body of knowledge. In this article, we highlight the areas of difference with the goal of improving our knowledge base about BC, which we hope continues to evolve as a practice and a science. We address three topics: (a) epistemology, (b) functional analysis versus problem analysis, and (c) efficiency versus effectiveness.