Research Designs in ABA

Running head: RESEARCH DESIGNS IN ABA 1

Research Designs in ABA

Amber Stump

Kaplan University

RESEARCH DESIGNS IN ABA 2

Research Designs in ABA

Research is studying someone or something to get the answer to a specific question a

person (usually a researcher) has. (Collin C. B., 2012) In applied behavior analysis (ABA),

research typically takes place by observing a person for specific behaviors, and then to try and

modify those behaviors by stopping them (if they are negative) or by starting new behaviors (if

they are positive). Research designs are different ways a researcher might observe behavior.

Research designs are many and varied, but have one common theme, observing behavior. What

are different ways to observe behavior? What types of designs are available to use in the ABA

field? Do any of them work better than others? Research designs are just part of the process of

modifying behavior, but not the most important. The point of this paper is to explore the different

types of research designs most commonly used; withdrawal/reversal, alternating treatments,

multiple baselines, and changing criterions. While exploring these research designs, there will be

information on concerns with each, examples of each, and an explanation of what the most

important part of the process is.

There are two ways to observe behavior. There is indirect observation, which is

something along the lines of questioning a person’s close relatives, co-workers, teachers, or

friends about the person’s behavior. Or, by giving the person a questionnaire, asking them to

answer specific ‘open-ended’ questions. Open ended questions are always better for observing

behavior than close ended questions, a close ended question would only have a yes or no answer,

it is harder to observe behavior if you only get yes or no answers. Open ended questions let the

person answering go into detail when answering a question. (Cherry K. , 2010)

Then there is direct observation. This is where a researcher will observe a person while

they exhibit behaviors. They will gather information, like; how often does this behavior happen,


why does this behavior happen, what sets off this behavior, what works in controlling or

exterminating this behavior, etc. They will take all these observations and build a research

design, or treatment program to help a person stop an undesirable (negative) behavior, or build a

new desirable (positive) behavior.

Internal validity is what happens when the study was done correctly and the researchers

look for this to show they did their jobs right. If the researcher is looking to do a treatment and

see the effects of that treatment on a person then the internal validity is important. Internal

validity is basically what proves that the study was done correctly and it worked. Internal validity

is proven by cause and effect being observed, sometimes research designs that help to make

internal validity better can affect how the external validity comes out. Finding a balance between

both internal and external validity is ideal.

If you say that this thing happens because of this other thing, and then it happens the way

you say it was going to happen, then you have internal validity. This is something you want as a

researcher, you want to prove that what you researched and what you said would happen,

happened.

External validity is important if you want to be able to take your study and use it out in

general population. If you prove your study works, and it is something that could help the public,

the external validity is then proven. Social validity is when the intervention, treatment program,

or study is acceptable by the client, the professional, and society itself. You don’t want to use a

treatment program that the client is uncomfortable with, or that society would look on as

unacceptable.


Withdrawal/reversal design is characterized as a design treatment program that gathers

data on a baseline target behavior, then introduces an intervention to effect that baseline behavior

(whether negative or positive) and to see if it changes, then you remove the intervention and go

back to the baseline behavior, and then begin the intervention once again to see if you can get the

same outcome as the first time you introduced the intervention. Also known as the ABAB

design, and more commonly known as the withdrawal design. (Bostow & Murdock, 2015)

Internal validity for the withdrawal design would be determined on exactly what you are

trying to prove in the treatment program. For example, you are trying to prove that you can potty

train a toddler (who previously wasn’t), remove the intervention and go back to baseline, and

then re-start the potty training. You say it is going to work exactly as it did the first time you

potty trained using the withdrawal design.

Whether or not it works the way you thought it would, tells you whether you’ve proven

that the internal validity is sound or not. The benefits and or/ drawbacks of the withdrawal design

can be hard to pin down, as the way you put together the design will affect the outcome. Benefits

of the withdrawal design are there if the design works as well as you say it will, and it can be

generalized for the public.

Drawbacks are that it is hard to keep a client happy with using this design as they have to

start, then stop, then restart the same intervention, and they may get fed up with all the starting

and stopping. Or, in the case of the toddler being potty trained, quite confusing and it could

negatively affect the outcome of getting the toddler to potty train in the future.

External validity for the withdrawal/reversal design is determined by the internal validity.

If the internal validity works, then that means the study was effective and now you ask yourself


whether or not it can be generalized for the public. Can the potty training design used on this

toddler work for other toddlers? Would this be something that could be taught to parents having

trouble with potty training? (Dyrvig A. K., 2014)

If you can say yes that it can be used by general public, then you have proven the external

validity of your study. Social validity is where you introduce your study and its outcomes to the

public and they accept it as something that is okay to use on people, if it isn’t considered bad for

the public to do, then you have proven social validity.

The ethical considerations of the withdrawal/reversal design using the potty training

example would be if you are trying to do something like physically punish (spank, smack, etc.) a

toddler when they don’t use the potty, but giving them a treat or praise when they do. This would

be completely unethical. (Association of Professional Behavior Analysts, 2015) Legally you may

have to get a patent if you come up with a video that teaches the potty training technique and you

end up selling it in a behavioral modification series. Individual implication of the

withdrawal/reversal design is that old saying; what works for one may not work for another.

You need to prove it will be effective in the general public before you can move the study

from an individual success to a general success. A socio-cultural issue could be that the study

done on potty training may not work across races, or genders. You will need to prove it will

work with most all toddlers to release it to the general public as a success for most toddlers, or

you need to put a disclaimer on it saying it only works on girl toddlers, etc.

Alternating treatment designs are where you have two or more interventions running

simultaneously and one can be a controlled intervention (no treatment). This is seen a lot in

pharmaceutical research. They have a person who has a disease; this person is put into a study


where they are given an experimental drug to see if it has a positive effect on their disease.

Usually there are numerous people in this study together.

The independent variable is the disease the people all have (such as diabetes)

(independent- something that doesn’t change), the dependent variable is the drug, or placebo

(controlled, no treatment), as well as the group of people (dependent-something that changes

depending on other factors). The group of people are broken up and given either a pill that has

the experimental medication in it or they are given the sugar pill (placebo). They are not told

which they have received; sometimes they are not even told there is a possibility of being given a

placebo. They are all observed to see if the experimental drug had any effect (positive/negative)

on them.

If the drug was a great success then the internal validity has been met. If they used a wide

range of people, such as; male, female, African American, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic, younger,

older, etc., and the effect is positive across the board then external validity has also been met.

The social validity is as usual. If it is acceptable and doesn’t offend people in some way it is

usually socially valid, in the case of pharmaceuticals, social validity would also include that there

are no serious side effects. (Henderson V. C., 2013)

An ethical consideration for the alternating treatment designs is that you use ethically

sound interventions; you wouldn’t want to knowingly give someone a medication that does more

harm than good. You also wouldn’t want to stop a person’s medication that they need to keep

them healthy and only have them taking a placebo, it could harm them. (Association of

Professional Behavior Analysts, 2015)


Legally, if the medicine was only studied to see if it had a positive effect without really

studying the side effects that can happen then you could legally be liable for any and all

malpractice that results from doing this. Individual considerations could be great if the medicine

is a resounding success and the ratio of side effects are really low, or non-existent. This would

affect the individual given the drug that could save their life.

Socio-cultural considerations would also be present if the drug study was done on all

types of society; Caucasian, African American, Asian, Hispanic, Young, Old, Female, Male, Etc.

and it was a sound study, and whether or not it was accepted by society (which is seen with the

cannabis oil debate).

Multiple baseline designs are where the individual has multiple behaviors that need

modification, but one specific intervention has been proven to work with this individual.

(Chapter 7; Multiple baseline designs (PDF)) This is a situation where a client has done well

with a specific design/intervention; they have shown proven results from the intervention being

used on them before. Take that intervention and use it on not only one behavior modification but

all behavior modifications of that same individual. If an individual has three separate behavior

issues that need to be dealt with, this same intervention or treatment program that has worked for

this individual will be used in all three behavior modifications, tackle each behavior that needs

modification individually, or in tandem by using the same intervention that has been proven to

work for them.

An example would be a child in a classroom setting. The child is having behavior issues.

All the observations and such have been done and we are now at the point of beginning the

intervention phase. The issues the child has are; talking out loud when they are not supposed to,

getting out of seat when not supposed to, and hitting other kids around them out of excitement to


an outside stimulus. The intervention that has been shown to work with this specific child is the

token program. So, it was decided that the best research design to use here is multiple baseline

designs, as the child has more than one behavior that needs to be modified.

So, each of the behaviors can be done separately, using the token system to phase out first

one behavior, then another, until all of them of become extinct. Or, the professional can choose

to tackle all the undesirable behaviors at once, to stop all the undesirable behaviors close to the

same time. In most cases, if the child can handle that much change at once, this would be the

most desirable way to go about this. It makes it hard to have a child in the classroom that spends

a lot of time interrupting everyone.

If, they have already proven that this intervention works for this child then the internal

validity has been proven, but it is also further proven when the child actually stops the

undesirable behavior by using the intervention. The external validity can also be proven, if this

works for this child, it may also work on other children in that classroom, or even another

classroom. (Onwuegbuzie, Expanding the Framework of Internal and External Validity in

Quantitative Research., 2000)

The social validity can also be proven, as it is already an acceptable behavior

modification technique used in classrooms across America. This intervention has replaced the

past interventions of sending a child to the principal’s office to be paddled.

Ethically, this design is a greatly accepted form of behavior modification already used in

classrooms all across America. (Boyd, 2015) It is an ethically sound treatment program that

works well, and also keeps the teacher and the professional using the treatment from doing

something unethical to a child. Legally, if the teacher or professional were to use a form of


corporal punishment in the classroom, they could be sued by the parents, or even brought up on

criminal charges. (Association of Professional Behavior Analysts, 2015)

Individual implications here are two fold. The teacher gets a quieter classroom and can

help all the children without having to spend extra time trying to keep the child with the behavior

issue under control. It also works well with children, they love earning tokens that they can later

turn in for a prize, they like getting the praise that also comes along with earning the tokens and

prizes. Socio-cultural implications here are great, as this particular treatment program has already

been proven to work across racial demographics and also with both genders.

The changing criterion designs are a relatively new but widely used treatment. It has been

used in places that you wouldn’t realize it was being used. It follows along the lines of the

multiple baseline designs in that they both have more than one behavior that needs to be

modified, but where the multiple baseline designs treat each of the behaviors with one

intervention, changing the undesirable behaviors either singly or in tandem; the changing

criterion design changes the treatment used gradually as it steps up from behavior modification

to another.

Examples of the changing criterion design being used in a way no one really stops and

thinks about are numerous. It is seen in teaching your child at home to brush their teeth, or clean

their room; it is taught in school from grade to grade, slowly stepping up from learning the

alphabet to reading, from learning numbers to doing complicated mathematical equations.

An example of the changing criterion designs is a home setting. The child refuses to clean

their room, the parent figures out it is because they find cleaning their room to be an

overwhelming job. There is too much to do and they feel swamped, so they just don’t do any of


it. The parent can use the changing criterion design to get the child to clean their room by using

steps. They are changing different behaviors (separate chores) but they all have one theme,

cleaning.

The parent starts out by having the child do just one thing at first, such as; picking up

dirty clothes and placing them into their dirty clothes basket. Once the child does this chore

without complaint, they get a reward for doing it correctly and without any complaining, this

step is done for a predetermined amount of time, then the parent steps the tasks up. Next they ask

the child to pick up the dirty clothes and place them into their basket and then carry them to the

laundry room.

Once the child does these two steps without complaint, then the parent has them pick up

and place the clothes into the basket, carry it to the laundry room, and also carry their clean

clothes to their room and place them on the dresser, once that is learned, then the parent steps it

up again to them also putting away the clean clothes.

Once the laundry in their room is done each day without complaint, the parent can then

begin on another chore in their room, such as; picking up all the stuffed animals and having them

place them into the basket for stuffed animals. This can be used for all things in the house. The

parent can teach the child how to do everything by going in steps. They just need to break down

each task into steps. They can even make pictures or word directions and place them on the wall

where the child can see them, and then the child comes home from school and knows they need

to do each chore, step by step.

The internal validity for the changing criterion designs is there already, it has been

proven to work and it is used a lot more than one would think. By saying it is there already, that


simply means you see parents all over the world (brushing teeth, getting dressed, using

silverware, etc.) teaching their kids day to day how to do new things, it works, thus internal and

external validity are proven day to day. The external validity is also already there as this design

is widely used out in general population (all around the world). The social validity also has to be

there or it wouldn’t be a research design that is taught to behavior therapists as an option for

treatment. (Jimenez-Buedo M. &., 2009)

Ethical considerations here are non-existent unless it was something illegal or wrong is

being taught with this treatment design. (Association of Professional Behavior Analysts, 2015)

Legal considerations are the same as the ethical considerations, unless you are teaching someone

something illegal, it really has nothing to do with anything legal. Individual considerations are

good for children; this really helps younger children learn to do things properly by doing them in

steps. Socio-cultural considerations are good, as this is used in types of settings.

All of these designs are just a smaller part of a bigger picture. The bigger picture here is

modifying behavior that is considered undesirable. It doesn’t really matter which of these

research designs you choose to use, so long as the one you chose works for that individual and

shows a change in the behavior that is being modified.

Multiple baseline designs are several behaviors in one individual needing change, this

type of design is different than the other designs as it has a base (the individual), multiple

baselines (different behaviors), and a particular treatment that works well with that individual

used in changing the multiple baselines (behaviors). (Byiers B. J., 2012) Changing criterions

design differs from multiple baselines in that you are changing and adapting your treatment

throughout one particular treatment program (different steps taught through teaching one task vs.

changing multiple behaviors). Alternating designs differs as well because it is where you have


more than one treatment design being used simultaneously on one individual with one issue

being treated (not paying attention to bad behavior while simultaneously praising good

behavior). Withdrawal/reversal design differs from all of these types as it starts with a baseline

behavior, then introduces the treatment design, then when a change is noticed the treatment is

removed and the individual returns to the baseline behavior (this can be seen as an experimental

design, as it shows (or proves) that the treatment works by taking it away and the individual

returns to the baseline design, you start the treatment again and the individual would again begin

to show a change).

While there are more than these four research designs, these are the most popular, being

used by more professionals than the other designs that are out there. Choosing a design comes

down to a lot of factors, one of which is; how many behaviors need to be changed? Can the

person who is having a behavior changed handle a stoppage to the intervention and then

restarting it? These are just some of the questions that should be asked as a part of determining

which research design works best for that individual. Research designs are just part of the

process of modifying behavior, but not the most important. The most important part of the

process is knowing your client.


References

(n.d.). Retrieved from Chapter 7; Multiple baseline designs (PDF): http://www.psych.uncc.edu/pagoolka/Ch7MultipleBaseline.pdf

Association of Professional Behavior Analysts. (2015). Retrieved from Ethical guidelines: http://www.apbahome.net/ethical_guidelines.php

Bostow, D. P., & Murdock, K. P.-D. (2015). ABA Glossary. Retrieved from Science of behavior: http://www.scienceofbehavior.com/lms/mod/glossary/view.php?id=408&mode=letter&hook=W&sortkey=&sortorder=&fullsearch=0&page=1

Boyd, N. (2015). Small n Designs: ABA & Multiple-Baseline Designs. Retrieved from Study.com: http://study.com/academy/lesson/small-n-designs-aba-multiple-baseline-designs.html

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Dyrvig, A. K. (2014). Checklists for external validity: a systematic review. Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, 20(6), 857-864. doi:10.1111/jep.12166.

Henderson, V. C. (2013). Threats to validity in the design and conduct of preclinical efficacy studies: A systematic review of guidelines for in vivo animal experiments. Plos Medicine, 10(7), 1-14. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001489.

Jimenez-Buedo, M. &. (2009). Experiments in the Social Sciences: The relationship between External and Internal Validity. . http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9037/4/jimenezbuedomiller_version_why_a_trade_off_philsci.pdf: PhilSci Archive.

Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2000). Retrieved from Expanding the Framework of Internal and External Validity in Quantitative Research. http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED448205 : RIEMAY2001

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Romero, P. D., & Kemp, P. D. (2007). Psychology demystified; A self teaching guide. New York: McGraw-Hill.

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