Research and Program Evaluation Flashcards

A counselor randomly assigns 60 clients to either a CBT group or a waitlist control group and compares anxiety scores afterward. What type of design is this?

Answer: True experimental design

Random assignment to treatment and control conditions defines a true experimental design.

What primarily distinguishes a quasi-experimental design from a true experiment?

Answer: Absence of random assignment to groups

Quasi-experiments compare groups, but participants are not randomly assigned, often because intact groups are used.

Students selected for a study because of extremely low self-esteem scores show higher scores on retest even without intervention. Which threat to internal validity is most likely?

Answer: Statistical regression

Extreme scores tend to move toward the mean on retest, a phenomenon called statistical regression.

A school counselor measures students' test anxiety before and after a workshop, with no comparison group. Which design is being used?

Answer: One-group pretest-posttest design

A single group measured before and after treatment without a comparison group is a one-group pretest-posttest (pre-experimental) design.

Participants in a workplace wellness study improve simply because they know they are being observed. This is called the:

Answer: Hawthorne effect

The Hawthorne effect occurs when awareness of being studied changes participants' behavior.

A counselor records a client's panic attacks during baseline, introduces treatment, withdraws it, and then reintroduces it. Which single-case design is this?

Answer: ABAB (reversal) design

Alternating baseline and treatment phases twice is an ABAB reversal or withdrawal design.

When withdrawing an effective treatment would be unethical, which single-case design is most appropriate?

Answer: Multiple baseline design

A multiple baseline design staggers treatment across behaviors, settings, or people without requiring withdrawal.