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J Appl Behav Anal. 1977 Spring; 10(1): 167–172.
doi: 10.1901/jaba.1977.10-167.
PMCID: PMC1311163
“Perhaps it would be better not to know everything.”1
Donald M. Baer
University of Kansas
1This comment has been attributed to Oedipus Rex, shortly after his successful investigation of a public-health problem in Thebes. The article following the comment is based largely on a symposium report presented at the meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, San Francisco, December, 1975. Reprints may be obtained from the author, Department of Human Development, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045.
Abstract
The advent of statistical methods for evaluating the data of individual-subject designs invites a comparison of the usual research tactics of the group-design paradigm and the individual-subject-design paradigm. That comparison can hinge on the concept of assigning probabilities of Type 1 and Type 2 errors. Individual-subject designs are usually interpreted with implicit, very low probabilities of Type 1 errors, and correspondingly high probabilities of Type 1 errors, and correspondingly high probabilities of Type 2 errors. Group designs are usually interpreted with explicit, moderately low probabilities of Type 1 errors, and therefore with not such high probabilities of Type 2 errors as in the other paradigm. This difference may seem to be a minor one, considered in terms of centiles on a probability scale. However, when it is interpreted in terms of the substantive kinds of results likely to be produced by each paradigm, it appears that the individual-subject-design paradigm is more likely to contribute to the development of a technology of behavior, and it is suggested that this orientation should not be abandoned.
Full text
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Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
  • Gentile J Ronald, Roden Aubrey H, Klein Roger D. An analysis-of-variance model for the intrasubject replication design. J Appl Behav Anal. 1972 Summer;5(2):193–198. [PubMed]
  • Jones Richard R, Vaught Russell S, Weinrott Mark. Time-series analysis in operant research. J Appl Behav Anal. 1977 Spring;10(1):151–166. [PubMed]