Single-Participant Research Design Summary

505 Words2 Pages

Morgan & Morgan (2001)

In this article Morgan & Morgan converse the effectiveness of single-participant research design. With the improvements of technology, a great deal of health care providers, and the FFS plans, in the 80s and 90s health care costs went up drastically. Along with that, health care providers have since been required to set in place effective interventions. Single-participant designs have a specific purpose and set-up, which poses for a limitation, but has a way of overcoming this issue.
Single-participant research has been used is psychology for quite some time. Although, it did take some time in the beginning to prove its worth, due to their differences from larger group designs. Ebbinghaus, Pavlov, and Skinner’s work (along with others) have been supportive of the single-participant research design. Throughout history, this design has demonstrated its effectiveness and continues today. With having a single-participant design, it allows the opportunity to repeat the measure, thus mirroring the aspects of group designs. The participant’s behavior is measured multiple times, giving the researcher peace of mind that what was measured is an …show more content…

This can be done by using an ABAB or reversal design. Although if this is unethical or if the individual cannot unlearn what was integrated into the intervention, another option to use would be the multi-baseline design. When graphing results, real-time graphs are used showing the occurrence of the behavior and the time at which that behavior is occurring. Although difficult, if a variable is completely under control, much better quality of data analysis can occur. Moreover, it may not be ideal to control everything, because some variables may be crucial for each individual behavior. Professionals involved in nursing and occupational and physical therapy utilize single-participant approaches when working one-on-one with their

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