Characteristics of single-case designs used to assess intervention effects in 2008 |
| |
Authors: | William R Shadish Kristynn J Sullivan |
| |
Institution: | University of California, Merced 95343, USA. wshadish@ucmerced.edu |
| |
Abstract: | This article reports the results of a study that located, digitized, and coded all 809 single-case designs appearing in 113
studies in the year 2008 in 21 journals in a variety of fields in psychology and education. Coded variables included the specific
kind of design, number of cases per study, number of outcomes, data points and phases per case, and autocorrelations for each
case. Although studies of the effects of interventions are a minority in these journals, within that category, single-case
designs are used more frequently than randomized or nonrandomized experiments. The modal study uses a multiple-baseline design
with 20 data points for each of three or four cases, where the aim of the intervention is to increase the frequency of a desired
behavior; but these characteristics vary widely over studies. The average autocorrelation is near to but significantly different
from zero; but autocorrelations are significantly heterogeneous. The results have implications for the contributions of single-case
designs to evidence-based practice and suggest a number of future research directions. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|