Experimental Research
For this discussion, consider the following case:
You are a school counselor, and Ruth is a somewhat difficult student in your life skills class. As a special needs learner she needs the content you teach in your class; however, she refuses to attend class or participate in class activities. You would like to put an intervention in place to increase her participation. Before you introduce the intervention, you need to ascertain her current level of participation.
You ask another school counselor to come by class and observe.
Respond to the questions below:
This strategy is called what?
How many observations should be the minimum you would consider?
Given this scenario, how might an A-B design be used?
What is one drawback of the A-B design?
Given this scenario, how might you employ an A-B-A-B design?
What is one benefit of the A-B-A-B design in this case compared to the A-B design? What is one drawback? How might you modify the design to combat the drawback?
Given this scenario, let’s assume that you have two possible treatments that you would like to use with Ruth. What single-subjects design would allow you to try both treatments?
Briefly describe how this design could be implemented.
What is one drawback of the design you selected above?