Which of the following best describes the structure and a major limitation of an AB design in single-subject research?

Because an AB design includes an initial baseline phase, researchers can confidently conclude that any change in the dependent variable during the treatment phase is strictly caused by the intervention.

A clinical psychologist investigates the effect of a mindfulness app on a client's stress levels. Match each part of this study to its corresponding role in an AB research design.

A clinical researcher uses an AB design to study the impact of a meditation exercise on a participant's sleep quality. Arrange the following steps in the logical order of analysis required to evaluate whether the meditation exercise caused an improvement in the participant's sleep.

You are tasked with designing a research protocol using an AB design to investigate whether a 'standing desk' increases a student's time spent on-task. Which of the following implementation plans correctly constructs the two phases required for this single-subject study while ensuring the comparison is methodologically sound?

Match each component or characteristic of an AB design with its correct description.

A school psychologist uses an AB design to investigate whether a daily check-in intervention reduces a student's off-task behavior. After three weeks of stable baseline data (A phase), the intervention is introduced for four weeks (B phase), during which off-task behavior drops noticeably. The psychologist concludes that the check-in intervention is the proven cause of the improvement. This conclusion is justified by the AB design.

An AB design is structurally similar to an interrupted time-series design applied to a single participant. When analyzing the results of an AB study, a researcher who observes improvement during the B phase must recognize that the design cannot rule out the role of _____ variables—factors unrelated to the intervention that happened to change around the same time the treatment was introduced.

A research methods instructor asks students to critically evaluate whether the results of an AB design study justify a causal claim. Arrange the following steps in the order a student should complete them to produce a well-reasoned evaluation.

A clinical researcher uses an AB design to evaluate a new mindfulness intervention for a participant's chronic pain. Although the participant reports a significant reduction in pain during the 'B' phase, the researcher must judge the causal evidence as weak because the study's _____ is low due to the design's inability to rule out coincidental extraneous variables.

Explain the structure of an AB design in single-subject research, identify the larger class of research design it is structurally similar to when applied to one participant, and outline the major limitation that impacts its internal validity.

Based on the characteristics of an AB design, explain why the psychologist cannot confidently conclude that the checklist caused the increase in on-task behavior, identifying the specific threat to internal validity present in this scenario.

A clinical researcher wants to use an AB design to evaluate if a new guided breathing exercise reduces a client's daily anxiety ratings. Describe how the researcher should apply this design by detailing what occurs in the baseline phase (A) and the treatment phase (B).