The captain of each precinct of a metropolitan police department selected two of

Question

The captain of each precinct of a metropolitan police department selected two officers to participate in a program designed to reduce prejudice by increasing sensitivity to racial and ethnic group differences and community issues. The training program took place every Friday morning for 3 months. At the first and last meetings, the officers completed a measure of prejudice. To assess the effectiveness of the program, the average prejudice score at the first meeting was compared with the average score at the last meeting. It was found that the average score was in fact lower following the training program. What type of design is this? What specific problems arise if you try to conclude that the training program was responsible for the reduction in prejudice?

A counselor in a spousal abuse shelter has been working with women in the shelter on their assertiveness in dealing with men. She would like to do a single case design with a woman client in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the assertiveness training. She intends to have the staff collect data, using a coded observation form, on the client's level of assertiveness in a variety of situations.

What would be the advantages and disadvantages of the following designs for this research?

AB

ABA

ABAB

What steps would need to be taken in order to conduct this study in an ethical manner? Are there any special problems that are unique to each design type (AB, ABA, or ABAB)?

In total, your posting should be at least 250 words and should be posted by 11:55 pm (EST) Wednesday of Session 6. Your instructor will reply to your posting within 24 hours of this Wednesday night deadline.

Explanation / Answer

it is a pretest-posttest design as it has measured the prejudice at the first and the last meeting which means the measurement was done before and after the experiment and the results of both were compared. the prejudice get reduced afterthe experiment but this conclusion has a lot of issues related to this. the design or the expalnation in no manner has shown that the change was only due to the training even the confounding variables could have played a role in this. also the random selection did nit happen rather two officers were selected on some basis for this experiment and hence the experiment turned out to be a quasi experiment which makes it less reliable.

a single subject experiment is the one in which the single individual or group serves as a control to their own self.

a common way of testing this is the AB, ABA, ABAB design.

AB DESIGN- it is a two part design. A phase is without any change and B prt is the treatment phase. if change is observed in the B phase then the treatment is said to be the cause of this. however it doesnt control any extraneous variables and the random distribution also doesnt happen as the control and the experimental group is the same. also after just 1 trial it cannot be said that the treatment is successful.

ABA DESIGN- It is used for the analysis of behavior occuring due to the experiment i.e. associations between situations and behavior as well as the analysis of the applied behavior i.e. techniques applying the principles of learning. in this the normal condition is introduces in phase A then the treatemnt in phase B and again the normal condition in phase A to check if the normal reaction returns. if the reaction returns to the phase A completely then the treatment can be said to be effective. It allows researchers to measure behavior accurately under controlled conditions with consistent values. it focuses on a particular subject and not on the population.

A-B-A-B Design- it involves phase A treatment then phase B treatment and again phase A treatment to check if withdrawal to normal phase happens and then again to phase B to see if the reversal to the treatment happens. hence, making it completely sure that the treatment is effective. it is a confirmation to the strength of the effect along with the repeatition to it.

the confounding variables need to be controlled. the normal behavior and its response needs to be recorded further chhanging it to the behavior with assertiveness and ut sresponse and depending on the type of design chosen the data should be collected and its effectiveness should be measured. i prefer ABAB design for it as it completely confirms that the treatment is successful.

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