Flashcards
8. Single Case Design
Cards in this deck (10)
- 1What is a 'case'?An individual
A group
A school / business / university - 2What is a case study?A case study is a detailed description of one individual case (usually a person) that represents an instance that is rare or of particular interest to the researcher / field.
- 3What is a single case study? How data is obtained and what an example of a single case study could be- A single case study is an intensive description and analysis of a single individual.
• Data can be obtained through naturalistic observation, interviews, psychological tests and / or experimental measurement
• For example, the case study could describe the application and results of a particular treatment - 4Describe one example of a case study- Challenging behavior and sleep cycle disorder
• TM (61) suffered a large subarachnoid hemorrhage of his right anterior cerebral artery, complicated by a midline shift and subsequent infarction of his left middle cerebral artery.
• This lead to cognitive impairment, challenging behavior and a disturbed sleep wake pattern.
• Light exercise was used as an intervention and he was taking several medicines.
• The Overt Aggression Scale Modified for Rehabilitation (OAS-MR) was used to measure his behavior. These measured several incidents such as verbal aggression, physical aggression to persons and sexualized gestures.
• The result after 18 months showed a significant decrease in weekly incidents compared to after 12 months. - 5The basics a naturalistic single case design• Exploratory
• Qualitative
• May generate hypotheses for experimental research - 6The basics of an experimental single case design• Experimental manipulation
• IVs and DVs
• Operational definitions
• Measurement
• Hypotheses
• 6+ participants - 7How to conduct a single case design?A single case experimental design is a core tool of behavior analysis, where single IVs are manipulated in order to measure behavioral change.
- The baseline is compared with intervention phases.
- It is assumed that behavioral principles are universal across individuals and organisms
- There is a graphical depiction of results
- The impact of the results is visually rather than statistically determined (“if the difference is not obvious it is not significant”)
- A = Baseline, B = Intervention 1, C = Intervention 2
AB = Weak design
ABA = Reversal procedures adds to predictive power but ends up with baseline
ABAB = Even more predictive power and ends up with intervention
ABC, ABAC, ABCD, etc.
The problems with this concern the ethics of withdrawal and the potential that intervention may have non-reversible effects. - 8Advantages of a case study (for science as a whole)• Providing new ideas and hypotheses, opening the way for discoveries based on other methodologies, and providing opportunity to develop new clinical techniques.
• Trying out new clinical techniques the utility of which may only become apparent in specific cases.
• Providing chance to study rare phenomena: Infrequent occurrences can only be examined through intensive study, e.g. feral children (e.g. ‘The wild boy of Aveyron’ who lived alone in the woods from ages 5 – 11, or the case of Genie). Such cases do not offer definitive answers but rather ‘oblige us to reflect on how to live with these unsolved questions’ (Shattuck, 1994). - 9Advantages of a case study (the rest)• The individual is more than can be represented by the collection of average values on various dimensions. A case study has the ability to reveal various nuances and subtleties of behavior that a group approach may miss.
• A case study can support or challenge scientific theories. For example, Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1974) multi-store model of memory gets considerable support from patients who show specific breakdowns in one part of the memory system. To illustrate, H.M. could have conversation and remember events for short periods of time but could not form new memories. - 10Disadvantages of case studies• The difficulty of drawing cause-effect conclusions: Other aspects of the patient-therapist relationship may have an impact. In the case of Genie, for example, a doctor’s examination at 14 months lead to the comment that she was possibly retarded. There is no way of concluding that Genie’s disposition was a product of the poor environment which she inhabited.
• Biases in interpretation or data collection; archival records or information based on self-reports are particularly vulnerable.
• Lack of generalization: It is difficult to generalize from case to case, except where it is assumed that the underlying physiological / behavioral systems are shared, e.g. psychophysics assumes that for example visual systems are based on a shared physiological makeup.
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- Psychology 2A (Research Planning and Design) Flashcards on 8. Single Case Design, created by Nina Olsson on 24/07/2018.
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- Nina Olsson
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