Exam 13: Alternative Research Designs

Describe the three procedures that are characteristic of all single-case experimental designs.

The textbook describes an experiment designed to test whether one brand of toothpaste is better at reducing cavities than another. Identify three potential extraneous variables for this experiment, and explain how you could conduct a study to control those extraneous variables.

In a nonequivalent group design, it is possible that the treatment group and the comparison group will change differentially as they get older. Therefore, any changes in the DV may be caused by this differential change instead of the IV. This threat to internal validity is known as

In single-case experiments, the letter ___ has referred to treatment measurements.

You choose your participants through random __________, and once you have chosen them, you place them into groups through random _________.

To show that a treatment worked in a single-case experiment, researchers typically

Chris would like to conduct a study on the effectiveness of a new substance-abuse treatment program. He has a sample of participants go through the program and he uses as a comparison group people who did not volunteer for the program but were eligible. Chris has used a(n) _________ design for his study.

What is the minimum number of observations you should collect during the baseline period in a single-case experiment?

Explain how the following threats to internal validity could occur in a pretest-posttest control-group design: (a) experimental mortality, (b) instrumentation, and (c) diffusion of treatment.

Briefly describe the pretest-posttest control-group design and give an example of such a study.

Describe three reasons why the A-B design is often used in the real world, in spite of its problems.

Measurements that occur during the period in which the treatment is removed are associated with the

Briefly describe the A-B-A design. Why is this design an improvement over the A-B design? Give an example of a study that uses the A-B-A design and describe one weakness with this design.

The interrupted time-series design is most similar to the ______ design.

The single-case research approach popularized by B.F. Skinner is called

Which of the following describes an A-B-A design?

Bess has conducted a pretest-posttest control-group study to raise math scores among fifth-grade students who have failed math. She has controlled the potential problem of _________ because this problem should affect both groups equally.

Why is internal validity the most important property of any experiment?

How have the researchers increased the external validity of their findings relative to a typical single-case experiment?

Questions refer to the following research study: Ronda would like to assess the effects of a reading comprehension course on the scores of students. She gives a group of remedial students a reading comprehension pretest and then randomly assigns them to either the treatment group or the control group. Shortly after the treatment, she measures their reading comprehension scores again. -Suppose Ronda finds out that participants in the treatment group were helping participants in the control group with their reading comprehension. Ronda should be worried about which threat to internal validity?