Single-Case Experimental Designs: A Systematic Review of Published Research and Current Standards

By J. Smith. Psychological methods, 2012

606 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article systematically reviews the research design and methodological characteristics of single-case experimental design (SCED) research published in peer-reviewed journals between 2000 and 2010. SCEDs provide researchers with a flexible and viable alternative to group designs with large sample sizes. However, methodological challenges have precluded widespread implementation and acceptance of the SCED as a viable complementary methodology to the predominant group design. This article includes a description of the research design, measurement, and analysis domains distinctive to the SCED; a discussion of the results within the framework of contemporary standards and guidelines in the field; and a presentation of updated benchmarks for key characteristics (e.g., baseline sampling, method of analysis), and overall, it provides researchers and reviewers with a resource for conducting and evaluating SCED research. The results of the systematic review of 409 studies suggest that recently published SCED research is largely in accordance with contemporary criteria for experimental quality. Analytic method emerged as an area of discord. Comparison of the findings of this review with historical estimates of the use of statistical analysis indicates an upward trend, but visual analysis remains the most common analytic method and also garners the most support amongst those entities providing SCED standards. Although consensus exists along key dimensions of single-case research design and researchers appear to be practicing within these parameters, there remains a need for further evaluation of assessment and sampling techniques and data analytic methods.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/401ebad2d8df4757ee9863a5763ee05e8fb91e5e

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Citations in the corpus

The Classroom as a Developmental Context for Cognitive Development: A Meta-Analysis on the Importance of Teacher–Student Interactions for Children’s Executive Functions (2018, methodology): “To this end, experimental studies could be used, as well as micro trials (Leijten et al., 2015) or single–case study designs (Smith, 2012).”
Statistical Analyses of Single-Case Designs (2014, background): “all published SCD data because they have the ability to digitize published graphs, and who are therefore already developing and conducting analyses and metaanalyses of SCD data (Shadish, in press-b); and (f) increasing recommendations to use statistics by various entities providing standards for SCD”
Design-Comparable Effect Sizes in Multiple Baseline Designs (2014, methodology): “This would effectively down-weight evidence from SCDs with very small numbers of cases, in a meta-analysis that included evidence from multiple types of designs.”
Randomization tests for single-case experiments: State of the art, state of the science, and state of the application (2014, background): “…statistics, such as deficient performance in the presence of data outliers in the baseline phase, insensitivity to data trends and variability in the data, and insensitivity to differences in the magnitude of effect (Maggin et al., 2011; Smith, 2012; Wolery, Busick, Reichow, & Barton, 2010).”