Rick Adams wrote:
> Michael Sylvester wrote:
>
> > Why not conduct a personal experiment:
> > -get a baseline for your sleeping behavior:record your daily sleep
> > behavior for about 10 days and get your average slleping time.
> > - compare and contrast behavior after varying hours of sleep
> > and your tips behavior.
> > -if efficiency is affected,you may want to draw conclusions
> > about behavior and sllep time.
>
> Er, Michael.
>
> Using a _single_ subject for this kind of "experiment" would, at best,
> provide an individual baseline for that single person--not data that could
> be applied with any reliability to the general population.
A defender of N=1 research might argue that one has more to generalize with N=1
results because you can more readily obtain functional relationships between IVs
and DVs. Using a larger sample, spending little time with each subject, and letting
statistics separate effects of IV from the effects of extraneous variables is a
relatively recent way to do research, and not always favored by well known
researchers. It was not the style of Pavlov, Ebbinghaus, Piaget or Skinner. With
large sample research you might discover a group effect that does tell you how the
IV effects the DV _at the level of the individual_. Ironically, we sometimes used
group data to make recommendations about individual cases.
True, you have to consider representativeness of the subject when you do N=1
research, as you would with any research. To do that, you can (1) replicate using a
second subject (to be absolutely certain, run a third subject), (2) consider the
important variables that would make a single subject un/representative of the
larger population at hand, and directly check these variables. N=1 research forces
you to "get your hands dirty" considering and then checking threats to internal and
external validity.
Coincidentially, there is an excellent article on single subject research in
February 2001 American Psychology (David and Robin Morgan), vol56 p. 119-127. btw,
I do not engage in single subject research myself - just an admirer of the
technique.
--
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John W. Kulig [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology http://oz.plymouth.edu/~kulig
Plymouth State College tel: (603) 535-2468
Plymouth NH USA 03264 fax: (603) 535-2412
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"What a man often sees he does not wonder at, although he knows
not why it happens; if something occurs which he has not seen before,
he thinks it is a marvel" - Cicero.
