A teacher has collected data that shows a student is biting his hand until it bl

Question

A teacher has collected data that shows a student is biting his hand until it bleeds every time he is given a work task to complete. She (after following all appropriate legal and ethical steps) decides to wrap his hands in medical tape at the start of the school day. The incidences of biting his hand decreases to zero. The teacher then stops wrapping his hands in medical tape and the biting returns.

What type of research design is this? Does the intervention appear to be effective? Why or why not?

Explanation / Answer

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) Quasi-Experiment, because an intervention is provided to a subject that isn’t chosen at random, in order to observe the causal impact of the intervention.

At first glance, the experiment seems ineffective. However, the child may not have received the intervention for a period long enough to help instil a new behaviour. Also, the conditions that he may have been exposed to, may not have been adequate enough for him to be trained to adopt a certain new behaviour. Furthermore, the intervention was not supplemented by therapy or any other solution to help solve the root of his problem, which might have been stress, anxiety or nervousness. Although the experiment did not work, it may have worked if it were streamlined.

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