Exam 1: Experimental Designs Flashcards
Treatments
Levels of the independent variable that you control
Denotations of variables/designs:
X: independent variable
O: dependent variable
R: random assignment
What is an independent variable
One or more factor that you manipulate or control
True Experiment
- IV AND participants are randomly assigned (R)
* Strong evidence for causal conclusions
Quasi-Experiment
• IV and participants are not randomly assigned
• Weaker evidence for causal conclusions
Ex: degrees of HL, age of people
- Manipulate the IV, but can’t/don’t randomly assign participants to groups or conditions (e.g., intact groups)
- More susceptible to threats to internal and external validity- weaker evidence for cause-effect conclusions
Threats to internal validity
Factorial Design
- May include both true and quasi-experimental components
* Consider a true experiment if even one IV meets criteria, but strong causal evidence only for the true manipulation
Posttest Only
Randomized Treatment Groups
• No-Treatment Control R X O R O • Alternative Treatment Control R X1 O R X2 O
• What are other possibilities for post-test only designs? Why would (or wouldn’t) you use this design?
Part of the random assignment means that differences between age groups should be naturally “washed out”… education level, sex, etc. but their may actually be differences between these sub-groups- you can’t always do pre-testing based on the situations
Pretest-Posttest
Randomized Control Group Design
• Also known as a mixed model randomly assign, make a measurement, apply treatment and re-measure • Within-subjects • Between-subjects R O X O R O O
Why would (or wouldn’t) you use this design? learning affects from repeated exposure, if learning effect is big in the control this may swamp the effects of the treatment
Solomon Randomized Four-Group Design
need double the participants and the time
Pretest-Posttest
R . O X O
R . O . O
Posttest Only
R . X O
R . O
Switching Replications Design
R\_\_O\_\_X\_\_O\_\_\_\_O R\_\_O\_\_\_\_\_O_X\_\_O Similar to cross over study design each person is their own control we hope our interventions/therapies carry over; can’t be sure the no treatment epochs are the same. Differences in exposure for the groups.
Factorial
• Multiple IVs examined in one design
• Examine main effects and interactions
The # of #s indicates how many IVs there are
The # itself tells you have many levels of that IV there are
For example: 2 X 3
group (younger vs. older) x treatment type (new1, new2, standard)
a 2X2X2 has 8 conditions
dependency- if the effect of one IV is determined by the other HAs work well when the patient is young but not old
Nonequivalent
Control Group Design
• Compare intact groups
- N (or omitted) denotes nonrandom assignment
• Typically pretest-posttest NOXO
NOO
• What are some other options? What design option might strengthen cause-effect conclusions?
if you found that the treatment is really effective, what do you tell the people that you denied treatment?
Double Pretest
N O O X O
N O O O
Repeated Measures
• AKA within-subjects design
• Two or more measures from the same individual
• May be experimental (e.g., group) or non-experimental (e.g., time)
• Measurements may either occur within a particular session (e.g., task conditions) or across multiple sessions
X1 O X2 O
• Why is this a quasi-experimental design? What are the benefits/limitations? not random b/c everyone gets everything
Counterbalancing
• Design to avoid order effects
• Randomly assign people to a given order
R X1 O X2 O
R X2 O X1 O
Single-Subject Design (concepts)
• AKA single case
• Not necessarily conducted on a single participant, but the data are presented in terms of individuals rather than groups
Single subject does not = case study
• Repeated measures: many measures of the target behavior taken over many sessions
• Lacks random assignment
need a lot of samples to know whats going on
Single-Subject Design Notations
Notation
• A = baseline (no treatment)
• B = first treatment
• C (etc.) = second treatment
• Simplest A-B sequence is weak, seldom used
• Many other explanations for changes from pre to posttest
• Might be used as part of documentation
Treatment Withdrawal Design
• A1-B-A2
• Also called reversal design
On-Off see if there’s an affect
stronger - if i stop providing the therapy you should go back to baseline
* stronger causal claims if you can show changes when treatment is both added and taken away