Essay

Describe the procedural steps of a multiple-baseline design across settings and explain how this design helps researchers establish that a treatment is responsible for a behavioral shift.

Question: Describe the procedural steps of a multiple-baseline design across settings and explain how this design helps researchers establish that a treatment is responsible for a behavioral shift.

Sample answer: In a multiple-baseline design across settings, a researcher measures a single participant's behavior in several different environments to establish a baseline in each. Then, the researcher introduces the treatment in each setting at staggered times. If the behavior changes in a particular setting only after the treatment is introduced in that specific setting, the researcher can be confident that the treatment, rather than setting-specific confounding variables, caused the behavioral shift.

Key points:

  • Measure a single participant's behavior across multiple different environments.
  • Establish a baseline in each environment prior to any intervention.
  • Introduce the treatment in each setting at staggered times.
  • Observe whether the dependent variable changes in each setting only after the intervention is applied there.
  • This approach increases confidence that the treatment caused the change by ruling out setting-specific confounding variables.

Rubric: Full credit is given for accurately describing the measurement of baseline behavior in multiple environments, the staggered introduction of the treatment across those settings, and how observing change only after treatment introduction rules out setting-specific confounding variables.

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Updated 2026-05-27

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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU

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