Annotated Bibliography: Multiple Baseline Design Studies in Psychology

This annotated bibliography provides concise summaries of eleven research articles focused on multiple baseline designs. The articles cover various applications of this research method, including its use in behavioral interventions, clinical psychology, and educational settings. The bibliography highlights the design's strengths, such as its ability to assess treatment effects, and also addresses its limitations. The studies explore the design's variations, including multiple baseline across behaviors, settings, and subjects. The articles also discuss statistical analysis methods appropriate for multiple baseline data. Overall, the bibliography offers a valuable resource for understanding the application and implications of multiple baseline designs in psychological research. The articles also highlight the limitations and considerations for its use, such as the need for the target behavior to be already in the subject's repertoire, and the potential for the design to impede the natural rate of learning.

Running head: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Annotated Bibliography
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1ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Article 1: Coon, J. C., & Rapp, J. T. (2018). Application of multiple baseline designs in
behavior analytic research: Evidence for the influence of new guidelines. Behavioral
Interventions, 33(2), 160-172.
This article by Coon and Rapp (2018) have assessed the extent to which the data
presentation guidelines that are provided by the various studies to depict and distinguish
among the concurrent and non-concurrent multiple baseline (MBL). It suggests that although
both these designs share same structural features, they differ in terms of advantages that they
offer for the purpose of evaluating the clinical outcomes and experimental questions. The
article has also highlighted the advantages of multiple baselines over the other AB designs
that only measure single case. The study has also revealed that the data-depiction guidelines
have now increased correct identification of the concurrent multiple baseline designs but at
the same time, also indicate that all these guidelines have not been adopted universally.
Article 2: Caron, E. B., & Dozier, M. (2019). Effects of fidelity-focused consultation on
clinicians' implementation: An exploratory multiple baseline design. Administration
and Policy in Mental Health, 46(4), 445-457.
Caron and Dozier (2019) in this study have examined the importance of multiple
baseline design and the logic behind it. They claimed that confident conclusions regarding
treatment effectiveness could be attained through the usage of multiple-baseline designs
where a single transition from the baseline to treatment (AB) is instituted at diverse times
across diverse clients, settings and behaviours. It is also to mention that the multiple-baseline
designs are often referred to as staggered baseline designs (Caron and Dozier 2019). The
authors have also concluded that it is highly useful for the interventions, which are
irreversible because of the learning impacts and when the treatment could not be withdrawn.
Also, here, the behaviours are measured across multiple settings, individuals and behaviours

2ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Article 3: Ruiz, F. J., Hernández, D. R., Falcón, J. C. S., & Luciano, C. (2016). Effect of
a one-session ACT protocol in disrupting repetitive negative thinking: A randomized
multiple-baseline design. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological
Therapy, 16(3), 213-233.
This study have followed a two-arm and randomised multiple baseline design that
helped it in promoting an ideographic analysis of the different behaviours and permitting
some nomothetic analyses. In this way, the possibility of observing the common processes in
the different participants is notably augmented in relation to some typical nomothetic
research where the average data across the participants hides the variability of human
behaviour. It is very important to mention that the starting of the treatment conditions is
staggered across different individuals. Besides not requiring the withdrawal of the
intervention, it is fairly very easy to conceptualise and is also commonly accepted in the
applied settings by both the teachers and the parents.
Article 4: Shahar, B., Bar-Kalifa, E., & Alon, E. (2017). Emotion-focused therapy for
social anxiety disorder: Results from a multiple-baseline study. Journal of Consulting
and Clinical Psychology, 85(3), 238.
This article has described the process of multiple baseline designs. Experimenter
begins from measuring a trait of interest and applying a treatment before measuring the same
trait once again. The treatment must not start until a stable baseline is recorded and at the
same time, it must not finish until and unless the measures regain its stability. According to
Shahar, Bar-Kalifa and Alon (2017) have also elaborated on delayed multiple baseline design
opining that it is a variation where the initial baseline and an intervention are started for one
single behaviour and the subsequent baselines for extra behaviours are started in delayed or
staggered fashion.

3ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Article 5: Joo, S., & Ferron, J. M. (2019). Application of the within- and between-series
estimators to non-normal multiple-baseline data: Maximum likelihood and bayesian
approaches. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 54(5), 666-689.
According to Joo and Ferron (2019), the Multiple-baseline design gives the
opportunity of estimating the effect of treatment on the basis of not only within-series
comparisons of the phase of treatment to the observations of baseline phase., but at the same
time, also time-specific among the series comparison of the observations from the ones that
have started treatment to the ones who are still in the baseline. Furthermore, the study has
also introduced two types of linear mixed modelling approach for analysing the multiple
baseline studies and they are the within series model and the between series model. The study
concluded that the between series are less precise than the within series.
Article 6: Capistran, J., & Martini, R. (2016). Exploring inter-task transfer following a
CO-OP approach with four children with DCD: A single subject multiple baseline
design. Human Movement Science, 49, 277-290.
This study by Capistrain and Martini (2016) has adopted a single subject design with
multiple baselines across different skills. A total of four children with Developmental
Coordination Disorder (DCD) were given 10 sessions of CO-OP intervention where every
child worked on three different tasks during the therapy sessions. The researchers have seen
notable improvement on the children during the therapy and it is concluded that effectiveness
of CO-OP for improving the untrained tasks in the children merit need further exploration.
Furthermore, it was also concluded that it is highly useful for the interventions, which are
irreversible because of the learning impacts and when the treatment could not be withdrawn.

4ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Article 7: Riley, A. R., Boshkoff, E. A., Neisius, A., & Freeman, K. A. (2016). A 4-minute
video improves parents’ instruction delivery to young children: A multiple-baseline
investigation. Clinical Practice in Pediatric Psychology, 4(4), 396.
Multiple baseline design also makes use of two or more group groups for testing an
intervention. The authors in this study have divided the multiple baseline designs into three
categories- multiple baseline across behaviours design, multiple baseline across settings
designs and multiple baseline across subjects design. Through providing a four minute video
to young children, it is noticed that there was significant improvement in the instruction
delivery of the parents to the children. Notwithstanding this fact, it is to mention that the
methodologic rigor of multiple baseline design should be considered in the process of
analysing.
Article 8: Bardy, G.H., Cardiac Pacemakers Inc, 2014. System and apparatus for
providing baseline data for automated patient management. U.S. Patent 8,702,603.
This study has focused on the limitation of the multiple baseline design. According to
Bardy (2014), the two main limitations of this design are that the target behaviour are
required to be already in the repertoire of the subject and that the important features of the
design might impede the natural rate of learning. Furthermore, it is also highlighted that the
although the multiple baseline designs compensate for different issues in ex post facto
recruitment, the experimental manipulation of the trait that are gathered by this method is not
likely to be manipulated always. This is why such studies are prevented from inferring the
causation if there are no phases for demonstrating the reversibility.
Article 9: Rakap, S. (2015). Effect sizes as result interpretation aids in single‐subject
experimental research: description and application of four nonoverlap methods. British
Journal of Special Education, 42(1), 11-33.

5ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
According to Rakap (2015), the logic behind multiple baseline design is staggered
introduction of IV. The design looks for the immediacy of effect and at the same time also
look to see if the introduction of IV on a tier is linked with the different changes in the
baseline of the remaining tiers. There are several considerations in this subject (Rakap 2015).
The dependent variables are required to be independent of one another but also functionally
similar. Also, the design is not suitable for the interventions that can have any kind of
interactive or carryover effects. Furthermore, the authors have also highlighted that the target
behaviour is irreversible in this design.
Article 10: Rabbi, M., Aung, M. H., Zhang, M., & Choudhury, T. (2015, September).
MyBehavior: automatic personalized health feedback from user behaviors and
preferences using smartphones. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint
Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 707-718).
Rabbi et al. (2015) in this study have used multiple baseline design where the subjects
are initially exposed for the control condition that is followed by experiment condition.
Notwithstanding this fact, the time of the control condition prior to the experiment condition
differs from different users and this variation is made according to the replication strategy for
showing that the desired dependent variable are consistently changing in the desired direction
after the beginning of the experiment condition. The mixed model for multiple baseline
design has demonstrated the changes in the user behaviour. The authors of the article have
concluded that the design effectively helped them in gaining a good and accurate
understanding of the user behaviours and their preferences.
Article 11: Gast, D. L., Lloyd, B. P., & Ledford, J. R. (2018). Multiple baseline and
multiple probe designs. In Single case research methodology (pp. 239-281). Routledge.

6ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
This article has described about the multiple baselines and multiple probe designs as
well as their usage by the applied researchers and has investigated the efficiency or
effectiveness of different types of interventions in the clinical and educational settings. The
study has also discussed about how the baseline logic is applied to the class of designs and
how the threats to the internal validity are been evaluated. Furthermore, the study also has
provided certain sets of guidelines for using them and claimed that multiple baseline designs
are used for comparing the intervention and baseline conditions. Lastly, the authors have
suggested that for demonstrating the experimental control using multiple baseline designs, the
researcher needs to make two predictions before starting the research.

7ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
References:
Bardy, G.H., Cardiac Pacemakers Inc, 2014. System and apparatus for providing baseline
data for automated patient management. U.S. Patent 8,702,603.
Capistran, J., & Martini, R. (2016). Exploring inter-task transfer following a CO-OP
approach with four children with DCD: A single subject multiple baseline
design. Human Movement Science, 49, 277-290. doi:10.1016/j.humov.2016.07.004
Caron, E. B., & Dozier, M. (2019). Effects of fidelity-focused consultation on clinicians'
implementation: An exploratory multiple baseline design. Administration and Policy
in Mental Health, 46(4), 445-457. doi:10.1007/s10488-019-00924-3
Coon, J. C., & Rapp, J. T. (2018). Application of multiple baseline designs in behavior
analytic research: Evidence for the influence of new guidelines. Behavioral
Interventions, 33(2), 160-172. doi:10.1002/bin.1510
Gast, D. L., Lloyd, B. P., & Ledford, J. R. (2018). Multiple baseline and multiple probe
designs. In Single case research methodology (pp. 239-281). Routledge.
Joo, S., & Ferron, J. M. (2019). Application of the within- and between-series estimators to
non-normal multiple-baseline data: Maximum likelihood and bayesian
approaches. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 54(5), 666-689.
doi:10.1080/00273171.2018.1564877
Rabbi, M., Aung, M. H., Zhang, M., & Choudhury, T. (2015, September). MyBehavior:
automatic personalized health feedback from user behaviors and preferences using
smartphones. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on
Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 707-718).

8ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rakap, S. (2015). Effect sizes as result interpretation aids in single‐subject experimental
research: description and application of four nonoverlap methods. British Journal of
Special Education, 42(1), 11-33.
Riley, A. R., Boshkoff, E. A., Neisius, A., & Freeman, K. A. (2016). A 4-minute video
improves parents’ instruction delivery to young children: A multiple-baseline
investigation. Clinical Practice in Pediatric Psychology, 4(4), 396.
Ruiz, F. J., Hernández, D. R., Falcón, J. C. S., & Luciano, C. (2016). Effect of a one-session
ACT protocol in disrupting repetitive negative thinking: A randomized multiple-
baseline design. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological
Therapy, 16(3), 213-233.
Shahar, B., Bar-Kalifa, E., & Alon, E. (2017). Emotion-focused therapy for social anxiety
disorder: Results from a multiple-baseline study. Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology, 85(3), 238.

9ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY