College of Education & Health Professions

Introduction

What will you address? It’s important to choose a topic in which you have an interest. Your interest in the topic will help keep you motivated to complete your project. Think of your experiences in the clinic or classroom and particular questions you might want to answer. For example, you may have worked with students/clients in school or clinic who are particularly sensitive to different forms of sensory stimulation. You may decide to focus on auditory sensitivity and behavioral interventions that mitigate auditory sensitivity. Or you may be interested in ABA subspecialties like behavioral gerontology, public health, environmental sustainability, organizational behavior management etc. Whatever you choose, define the issue and give general background on it from the research literature. For example, if you are interested in auditory sensitivity, you will define auditory sensitivity and provide information about the prevalence, who most likely exhibits it and some of the effects of auditory sensitivity on daily life and general well-being.

Literature Review

Review the literature regarding approaches you found in the relevant research for the topic you have in mind. Be sure to narrow your topic to capture a specific body of research. For example, if you are interested in auditory sensitivity and desensitization approaches then you will focus your literature review and writing in that area. For guidance conducting a literature review go to this link at the UHV library page https://library.uhv.edu/literature-review. When you are doing your literature review you should also be comparing research article methods and results to one another to establish the purpose of your own research.

Purpose

After your literature review, include a purpose statement and research question(s). For example, you might say the purpose of the research is to improve upon the study by Smith (2003) and then explain the basic way you will do that. Your research question will focus on whether the independent variable (intervention) will influence the dependent variable (behavior).

Method

Setting

Describe the setting in which the research will be implemented. This will be a description of the classroom, clinic, home etc.

Subject(s)

Describe the subject or subjects you will propose to recruit including how you will obtain informed consent.

Intervention Procedures

Describe the independent variable that will be employed to address the dependent variable. This should be an in-depth description of how you will implement your independent variable. In this section you will describe the single case research design you will use to implement your independent variable. Be sure to justify the design you choose to implement the independent variable. For this section you must have a detailed description so someone can replicate your intervention procedures.

Data Collection Method

Describe how you will collect the data. In other words, how will the dependent variable be measured and what dimension of the dependent variable will be measured and why? Also, include information about how you plan to collect interrater reliability data and ensure measurement validity.

Data Analysis

Describe how you will analyze the data. Here you can discuss visual analysis and how you can establish a functional relationship through describing the baseline logic of the design. Discuss how you will minimize threats to internal validity by controlling for potential confounding variables that may affect your dependent variable.

References

Include references using APA Style.