Question

ch5 Research Methods

THE IMPORTANCE OF BASELINES

Let’s imagine what might happen if you don’t use a proper research design. Sometimes you need a good design, even when you’re not doing research—when you’re working as a practitioner. Consider the case of Frank, a young man who was referred to the Psychology Service. He spent so many hours slapping his face, the staff had to restrain him. Before we started a behavioral intervention, we collected baseline data on his unrestrained frequency of self-injurious slapping. It was a good thing we did.

During eleven 30-minute observation periods, his frequency of face slapping rapidly dropped from over 600 an hour to nearly 0. But we hadn’t done anything! This was just baseline.

Consider this hypothetical situation: Imagine we had used a pharmacological intervention in which Frank took a tranquilizer every day in the hope that this would get rid of his face slapping. And suppose we had used the drug without getting baseline data first. It would have looked as if the drug had caused the decrease in slapping. Then Frank might have unnecessarily been on that drug the rest of his life!

Moral: We often need to collect baseline data to make sure our intervention, our independent variable, is causing any changes we see in the dependent variable. It’s important to be sure of what’s causing what, both for scientific and practical reasons. So, as scientific researchers we need to collect baselines, and even as practitioners, we sometimes need to collect baselines (for example, physicians often withhold the prescription of antibiotics for a few days to be sure the antibiotics are needed to cure your sore throat). Practitioners may need to collect baseline data when they’re not sure whether an elaborate, expensive, or potentially hazardous intervention is needed.

QUESTION

1.Give an example of the importance of collecting baseline data and what might happen if you didn’t.

Answer 1

All psychological intervention requires assessment of baseline data for it to be sensible, let alone research . In accepted practice of behavioral assessment the importance of it is quite evident . For example, consider the assessment of a child suspected of ADHD. The level of severity itself has to be made assessing the baseline data regarding the attention span, ability to be calm for a particular period of time etc. Consider the situation in which child has only of hyper kinetic disorder or of inattention type . Assume the situation in which child is irritable while he/she was brought to the clinician for assessment, due to environmental factors like unfamiliar place, hunger or any random event. An overlook of baseline data of attention span or temper tantrum pose the risk of erroneous diagnosis of combined ADHD features and subjects the child to even unwanted medication. In a case of differential diagnosis of autism with ADHD or comorbid condition where symptoms overlap baseline data becomes all the more important in the correct diagnosis and intervention . Or even in other situations like finding out the effectiveness of a new teaching method on academic performance , the establishment of hypothesis will become unscientific without assessing the baseline performance.