Short Answer

A clinical psychologist wants to study the overall average effectiveness of a new cognitive behavioral therapy across a population, while also evaluating how a specific individual patient's symptoms change week-by-week. How can the researcher apply both group and single-subject designs to address these different goals?

Question: A clinical psychologist wants to study the overall average effectiveness of a new cognitive behavioral therapy across a population, while also evaluating how a specific individual patient's symptoms change week-by-week. How can the researcher apply both group and single-subject designs to address these different goals?

Sample answer: The researcher can apply a group research design to evaluate the average effectiveness of the therapy across the population, and apply a single-subject research design to monitor and analyze the specific individual patient's week-by-week symptom changes. This allows the researcher to use the distinct strengths of both approaches complementarily.

Key points:

  • Apply a group research design to study average effectiveness across a population.
  • Apply a single-subject research design to study specific individual symptom changes.
  • Utilize both designs to address different types of research goals within the same program.

Rubric: To receive full credit, the answer must apply a group design to the goal of finding average population-level effectiveness and a single-subject design to study the individual patient's symptom changes.

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Updated 2026-05-26

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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU

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