Dart Evan H, Radley Keith C
Department of Psychology, University of Southern Mississippi.
Sch Psychol Q. 2018 Sep;33(3):350-355. doi: 10.1037/spq0000269. Epub 2018 Jul 5.
Single-case data are frequently used in school psychology. In research, single-case designs allow experimenters to provide rigorous demonstrations of treatment effects on a smaller scale and with more precise measurement than traditional group experimental design. In practice, single-case data are used to evaluate the effects of school-based services to make decisions at the individual level within a multitiered system of support (MTSS). School psychology and related fields (e.g., special education) have worked to increase the rigor of single-case data by developing standards for single-case experimental design and developing robust single-case effect size statistics; however, in practice, single-case data are often collected with less experimental rigor and evaluated using visual analysis of a linear graph as opposed to quantitative effect sizes. This is concerning, as an emerging body of literature suggests that simple elements of the graphical display (e.g., ordinate axis scaling, ratio of X to Y axis length) can have a profound impact on effect size judgments made by visual analysts. Currently, there are no standards guiding the construction of linear graphs used to display single-case data. The purpose of this paper is to advance the perspective that our field must develop and adopt standards of linear graph construction or risk inaccurate decisions within a MTSS framework. (PsycINFO Database Record
单案例数据在学校心理学中经常被使用。在研究中，与传统的组间实验设计相比，单案例设计使实验者能够在更小的规模上、通过更精确的测量，严格地证明治疗效果。在实践中，单案例数据用于评估校本服务的效果，以便在多层次支持系统（MTSS）内的个体层面做出决策。学校心理学及相关领域（如特殊教育）已致力于通过制定单案例实验设计标准和开发强大的单案例效应量统计方法，来提高单案例数据的严谨性；然而，在实践中，单案例数据的收集往往缺乏实验严谨性，且使用线性图表的视觉分析而非定量效应量进行评估。这令人担忧，因为新出现的一批文献表明，图表展示的简单元素（如纵坐标刻度、X轴与Y轴长度之比）会对视觉分析者做出的效应量判断产生深远影响。目前，尚无指导用于展示单案例数据的线性图表构建的标准。本文的目的是提出这样一种观点，即我们这个领域必须制定并采用线性图表构建标准，否则在MTSS框架内可能会做出不准确的决策。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》 ）
