Research Designs in ABA

Running head: RESEARCH DESIGNS IN ABA 1
Research Designs in ABA
Amber Stump
Kaplan University

RESEARCH DESIGNS IN ABA 2
Research Designs in ABA
Research is studying someone or something to get the answer to a specific question a
person (usually a researcher) has. (Collin C. B., 2012) In applied behavior analysis (ABA),
research typically takes place by observing a person for specific behaviors, and then to try and
modify those behaviors by stopping them (if they are negative) or by starting new behaviors (if
they are positive). Research designs are different ways a researcher might observe behavior.
Research designs are many and varied, but have one common theme, observing behavior. What
are different ways to observe behavior? What types of designs are available to use in the ABA
field? Do any of them work better than others? Research designs are just part of the process of
modifying behavior, but not the most important. The point of this paper is to explore the different
types of research designs most commonly used; withdrawal/reversal, alternating treatments,
multiple baselines, and changing criterions. While exploring these research designs, there will be
information on concerns with each, examples of each, and an explanation of what the most
important part of the process is.
There are two ways to observe behavior. There is indirect observation, which is
something along the lines of questioning a person’s close relatives, co-workers, teachers, or
friends about the person’s behavior. Or, by giving the person a questionnaire, asking them to
answer specific ‘open-ended’ questions. Open ended questions are always better for observing
behavior than close ended questions, a close ended question would only have a yes or no answer,
it is harder to observe behavior if you only get yes or no answers. Open ended questions let the
person answering go into detail when answering a question. (Cherry K. , 2010)
Then there is direct observation. This is where a researcher will observe a person while
they exhibit behaviors. They will gather information, like; how often does this behavior happen,

why does this behavior happen, what sets off this behavior, what works in controlling or
exterminating this behavior, etc. They will take all these observations and build a research
design, or treatment program to help a person stop an undesirable (negative) behavior, or build a
new desirable (positive) behavior.
Internal validity is what happens when the study was done correctly and the researchers
look for this to show they did their jobs right. If the researcher is looking to do a treatment and
see the effects of that treatment on a person then the internal validity is important. Internal
validity is basically what proves that the study was done correctly and it worked. Internal validity
is proven by cause and effect being observed, sometimes research designs that help to make
internal validity better can affect how the external validity comes out. Finding a balance between
both internal and external validity is ideal.
If you say that this thing happens because of this other thing, and then it happens the way
you say it was going to happen, then you have internal validity. This is something you want as a
researcher, you want to prove that what you researched and what you said would happen,
happened.
External validity is important if you want to be able to take your study and use it out in
general population. If you prove your study works, and it is something that could help the public,
the external validity is then proven. Social validity is when the intervention, treatment program,
or study is acceptable by the client, the professional, and society itself. You don’t want to use a
treatment program that the client is uncomfortable with, or that society would look on as
unacceptable.

Withdrawal/reversal design is characterized as a design treatment program that gathers
data on a baseline target behavior, then introduces an intervention to effect that baseline behavior
(whether negative or positive) and to see if it changes, then you remove the intervention and go
back to the baseline behavior, and then begin the intervention once again to see if you can get the
same outcome as the first time you introduced the intervention. Also known as the ABAB
design, and more commonly known as the withdrawal design. (Bostow & Murdock, 2015)
Internal validity for the withdrawal design would be determined on exactly what you are
trying to prove in the treatment program. For example, you are trying to prove that you can potty
train a toddler (who previously wasn’t), remove the intervention and go back to baseline, and
then re-start the potty training. You say it is going to work exactly as it did the first time you
potty trained using the withdrawal design.
Whether or not it works the way you thought it would, tells you whether you’ve proven
that the internal validity is sound or not. The benefits and or/ drawbacks of the withdrawal design
can be hard to pin down, as the way you put together the design will affect the outcome. Benefits
of the withdrawal design are there if the design works as well as you say it will, and it can be
generalized for the public.
Drawbacks are that it is hard to keep a client happy with using this design as they have to
start, then stop, then restart the same intervention, and they may get fed up with all the starting
and stopping. Or, in the case of the toddler being potty trained, quite confusing and it could
negatively affect the outcome of getting the toddler to potty train in the future.
External validity for the withdrawal/reversal design is determined by the internal validity.
If the internal validity works, then that means the study was effective and now you ask yourself

whether or not it can be generalized for the public. Can the potty training design used on this
toddler work for other toddlers? Would this be something that could be taught to parents having
trouble with potty training? (Dyrvig A. K., 2014)
If you can say yes that it can be used by general public, then you have proven the external
validity of your study. Social validity is where you introduce your study and its outcomes to the
public and they accept it as something that is okay to use on people, if it isn’t considered bad for
the public to do, then you have proven social validity.
The ethical considerations of the withdrawal/reversal design using the potty training
example would be if you are trying to do something like physically punish (spank, smack, etc.) a
toddler when they don’t use the potty, but giving them a treat or praise when they do. This would
be completely unethical. (Association of Professional Behavior Analysts, 2015) Legally you may
have to get a patent if you come up with a video that teaches the potty training technique and you
end up selling it in a behavioral modification series. Individual implication of the
withdrawal/reversal design is that old saying; what works for one may not work for another.
You need to prove it will be effective in the general public before you can move the study
from an individual success to a general success. A socio-cultural issue could be that the study
done on potty training may not work across races, or genders. You will need to prove it will
work with most all toddlers to release it to the general public as a success for most toddlers, or
you need to put a disclaimer on it saying it only works on girl toddlers, etc.
Alternating treatment designs are where you have two or more interventions running
simultaneously and one can be a controlled intervention (no treatment). This is seen a lot in
pharmaceutical research. They have a person who has a disease; this person is put into a study

where they are given an experimental drug to see if it has a positive effect on their disease.
Usually there are numerous people in this study together.
The independent variable is the disease the people all have (such as diabetes)
(independent- something that doesn’t change), the dependent variable is the drug, or placebo
(controlled, no treatment), as well as the group of people (dependent-something that changes
depending on other factors). The group of people are broken up and given either a pill that has
the experimental medication in it or they are given the sugar pill (placebo). They are not told
which they have received; sometimes they are not even told there is a possibility of being given a
placebo. They are all observed to see if the experimental drug had any effect (positive/negative)
on them.
If the drug was a great success then the internal validity has been met. If they used a wide
range of people, such as; male, female, African American, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic, younger,
older, etc., and the effect is positive across the board then external validity has also been met.
The social validity is as usual. If it is acceptable and doesn’t offend people in some way it is
usually socially valid, in the case of pharmaceuticals, social validity would also include that there
are no serious side effects. (Henderson V. C., 2013)
An ethical consideration for the alternating treatment designs is that you use ethically
sound interventions; you wouldn’t want to knowingly give someone a medication that does more
harm than good. You also wouldn’t want to stop a person’s medication that they need to keep
them healthy and only have them taking a placebo, it could harm them. (Association of
Professional Behavior Analysts, 2015)

Legally, if the medicine was only studied to see if it had a positive effect without really
studying the side effects that can happen then you could legally be liable for any and all
malpractice that results from doing this. Individual considerations could be great if the medicine
is a resounding success and the ratio of side effects are really low, or non-existent. This would
affect the individual given the drug that could save their life.
Socio-cultural considerations would also be present if the drug study was done on all
types of society; Caucasian, African American, Asian, Hispanic, Young, Old, Female, Male, Etc.
and it was a sound study, and whether or not it was accepted by society (which is seen with the
cannabis oil debate).
Multiple baseline designs are where the individual has multiple behaviors that need
modification, but one specific intervention has been proven to work with this individual.
(Chapter 7; Multiple baseline designs (PDF)) This is a situation where a client has done well
with a specific design/intervention; they have shown proven results from the intervention being
used on them before. Take that intervention and use it on not only one behavior modification but
all behavior modifications of that same individual. If an individual has three separate behavior
issues that need to be dealt with, this same intervention or treatment program that has worked for
this individual will be used in all three behavior modifications, tackle each behavior that needs
modification individually, or in tandem by using the same intervention that has been proven to
work for them.
An example would be a child in a classroom setting. The child is having behavior issues.
All the observations and such have been done and we are now at the point of beginning the
intervention phase. The issues the child has are; talking out loud when they are not supposed to,
getting out of seat when not supposed to, and hitting other kids around them out of excitement to

an outside stimulus. The intervention that has been shown to work with this specific child is the
token program. So, it was decided that the best research design to use here is multiple baseline
designs, as the child has more than one behavior that needs to be modified.
So, each of the behaviors can be done separately, using the token system to phase out first
one behavior, then another, until all of them of become extinct. Or, the professional can choose
to tackle all the undesirable behaviors at once, to stop all the undesirable behaviors close to the
same time. In most cases, if the child can handle that much change at once, this would be the
most desirable way to go about this. It makes it hard to have a child in the classroom that spends
a lot of time interrupting everyone.
If, they have already proven that this intervention works for this child then the internal
validity has been proven, but it is also further proven when the child actually stops the
undesirable behavior by using the intervention. The external validity can also be proven, if this
works for this child, it may also work on other children in that classroom, or even another
classroom. (Onwuegbuzie, Expanding the Framework of Internal and External Validity in
Quantitative Research., 2000)
The social validity can also be proven, as it is already an acceptable behavior
modification technique used in classrooms across America. This intervention has replaced the
past interventions of sending a child to the principal’s office to be paddled.
Ethically, this design is a greatly accepted form of behavior modification already used in
classrooms all across America. (Boyd, 2015) It is an ethically sound treatment program that
works well, and also keeps the teacher and the professional using the treatment from doing
something unethical to a child. Legally, if the teacher or professional were to use a form of

corporal punishment in the classroom, they could be sued by the parents, or even brought up on
criminal charges. (Association of Professional Behavior Analysts, 2015)
Individual implications here are two fold. The teacher gets a quieter classroom and can
help all the children without having to spend extra time trying to keep the child with the behavior
issue under control. It also works well with children, they love earning tokens that they can later
turn in for a prize, they like getting the praise that also comes along with earning the tokens and
prizes. Socio-cultural implications here are great, as this particular treatment program has already
been proven to work across racial demographics and also with both genders.
The changing criterion designs are a relatively new but widely used treatment. It has been
used in places that you wouldn’t realize it was being used. It follows along the lines of the
multiple baseline designs in that they both have more than one behavior that needs to be
modified, but where the multiple baseline designs treat each of the behaviors with one
intervention, changing the undesirable behaviors either singly or in tandem; the changing
criterion design changes the treatment used gradually as it steps up from behavior modification
to another.
Examples of the changing criterion design being used in a way no one really stops and
thinks about are numerous. It is seen in teaching your child at home to brush their teeth, or clean
their room; it is taught in school from grade to grade, slowly stepping up from learning the
alphabet to reading, from learning numbers to doing complicated mathematical equations.
An example of the changing criterion designs is a home setting. The child refuses to clean
their room, the parent figures out it is because they find cleaning their room to be an
overwhelming job. There is too much to do and they feel swamped, so they just don’t do any of

it. The parent can use the changing criterion design to get the child to clean their room by using
steps. They are changing different behaviors (separate chores) but they all have one theme,
cleaning.
The parent starts out by having the child do just one thing at first, such as; picking up
dirty clothes and placing them into their dirty clothes basket. Once the child does this chore
without complaint, they get a reward for doing it correctly and without any complaining, this
step is done for a predetermined amount of time, then the parent steps the tasks up. Next they ask
the child to pick up the dirty clothes and place them into their basket and then carry them to the
laundry room.
Once the child does these two steps without complaint, then the parent has them pick up
and place the clothes into the basket, carry it to the laundry room, and also carry their clean
clothes to their room and place them on the dresser, once that is learned, then the parent steps it
up again to them also putting away the clean clothes.
Once the laundry in their room is done each day without complaint, the parent can then
begin on another chore in their room, such as; picking up all the stuffed animals and having them
place them into the basket for stuffed animals. This can be used for all things in the house. The
parent can teach the child how to do everything by going in steps. They just need to break down
each task into steps. They can even make pictures or word directions and place them on the wall
where the child can see them, and then the child comes home from school and knows they need
to do each chore, step by step.
The internal validity for the changing criterion designs is there already, it has been
proven to work and it is used a lot more than one would think. By saying it is there already, that

simply means you see parents all over the world (brushing teeth, getting dressed, using
silverware, etc.) teaching their kids day to day how to do new things, it works, thus internal and
external validity are proven day to day. The external validity is also already there as this design
is widely used out in general population (all around the world). The social validity also has to be
there or it wouldn’t be a research design that is taught to behavior therapists as an option for
treatment. (Jimenez-Buedo M. &., 2009)
Ethical considerations here are non-existent unless it was something illegal or wrong is
being taught with this treatment design. (Association of Professional Behavior Analysts, 2015)
Legal considerations are the same as the ethical considerations, unless you are teaching someone
something illegal, it really has nothing to do with anything legal. Individual considerations are
good for children; this really helps younger children learn to do things properly by doing them in
steps. Socio-cultural considerations are good, as this is used in types of settings.
All of these designs are just a smaller part of a bigger picture. The bigger picture here is
modifying behavior that is considered undesirable. It doesn’t really matter which of these
research designs you choose to use, so long as the one you chose works for that individual and
shows a change in the behavior that is being modified.
Multiple baseline designs are several behaviors in one individual needing change, this
type of design is different than the other designs as it has a base (the individual), multiple
baselines (different behaviors), and a particular treatment that works well with that individual
used in changing the multiple baselines (behaviors). (Byiers B. J., 2012) Changing criterions
design differs from multiple baselines in that you are changing and adapting your treatment
throughout one particular treatment program (different steps taught through teaching one task vs.
changing multiple behaviors). Alternating designs differs as well because it is where you have

more than one treatment design being used simultaneously on one individual with one issue
being treated (not paying attention to bad behavior while simultaneously praising good
behavior). Withdrawal/reversal design differs from all of these types as it starts with a baseline
behavior, then introduces the treatment design, then when a change is noticed the treatment is
removed and the individual returns to the baseline behavior (this can be seen as an experimental
design, as it shows (or proves) that the treatment works by taking it away and the individual
returns to the baseline design, you start the treatment again and the individual would again begin
to show a change).
While there are more than these four research designs, these are the most popular, being
used by more professionals than the other designs that are out there. Choosing a design comes
down to a lot of factors, one of which is; how many behaviors need to be changed? Can the
person who is having a behavior changed handle a stoppage to the intervention and then
restarting it? These are just some of the questions that should be asked as a part of determining
which research design works best for that individual. Research designs are just part of the
process of modifying behavior, but not the most important. The most important part of the
process is knowing your client.

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