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A single-subject research design developed to address the ethical and practical limitations of the reversal design. In a multiple-baseline design, baselines are established for multiple participants, behaviors, or settings, and the treatment is introduced at a different time for each. This design demonstrates the effect of a treatment without requiring its removal.

Multiple-Baseline Design

A multiple-baseline design across participants involves establishing a baseline for several different individuals and then introducing the treatment to each person at a different, staggered time. Because each participant essentially undergoes an AB design, the staggered introduction is crucial for establishing internal validity. If the dependent variable changes for each individual specifically after the intervention is applied to them, it is highly unlikely to be a result of coincidence or a shared external event, demonstrating that the treatment is the cause.

Multiple-Baseline Design Across Participants

A multiple-baseline design across behaviors involves establishing multiple baselines for a single participant across different dependent variables (behaviors), and then introducing the intervention for each behavior at staggered times. By showing that an individual's behavior changes only when the treatment is applied to that specific behavior, researchers can establish causality. For example, if an intervention designed to improve productivity is introduced for an office worker's sales calls first, and later for their report writing, an increase in productivity for each task corresponding only to the staggered introduction time provides clear evidence that the treatment caused the improvement.

Multiple-Baseline Design Across Behaviors

A multiple-baseline design across settings involves measuring a single participant's behavior across multiple different environments to establish baselines, and then introducing the treatment in each environment at staggered times. If the dependent variable changes in each setting only after the intervention is applied there, it increases the researcher's confidence that the treatment is responsible for the behavioral shift. For example, an intervention like positive attention could be introduced to encourage a child's reading first during school free time, and later during their free time at home, ruling out setting-specific confounding variables.

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