Respected researchers, scholars, teachers,
This doubt has been in my mind for the past couple of days. I went through several articles and book chapters but couldn't find an answer to it. While deploying a CONCURRENT MULTIPLE BASELINE DESIGN, should I collect data from each participant, for example, during the baseline phase, at precisely the same point in time? Or, is it that it should be on the same day? Is there a stipulation that the data points of each participant should coincide/be at the same moment? If it's so, it would require a team of therapists/researchers to carry out the intervention and collect data, which is going to be difficult in my case. Hence this query. Thank you for sparing your time to go through this.
Dear Jeevan David Maxim,
In a Concurrent Multiple Baseline Design Across Participants, data collection does not need to occur exactly at the same time for different participants. To my experience, this design is a type of single-subject experimental design often used in behavioral research and neuroscience to evaluate the effects of an intervention/treatment, and involves the collection of baseline data for each participant before the intervention is introduced. The key feature of this design is that the intervention allows us to control for external variables that might influence the outcomes.
The introduction of the intervention provides a way to demonstrate that changes in behavior (or other variables) are due to the intervention rather than to other external factors (excluding noise sources and biases..). Therefore, while data collection should be consistent and systematic for each participant, it does not require "exact simultaneous" data collection across all participants. What is crucial is that baseline data collection is sufficiently long and stable for each participant before introducing the intervention, ensuring that any changes observed can be attributed with greater confidence to the intervention itself.
Therefore, it's not required to have a team of therapists or researchers to collect data or administer interventions at precisely the same moment for each participant. The logistical arrangements should ensure consistent and systematic data collection for each participant according to their individual timeline in the study, allowing for practical implementation of the research design without the need for simultaneous data collection.
As a personal suggestion, you may want to check the importance of linear mixed-effects regression, which allows modeling for intra-individual and inter-individual variability simultaneously.
Hope this helps.
Peace,
Simone
This is really really helpful, Simone Di Plinio. Thank you so much. So, if I understand correctly, a participant will transition to the intervention phase only after the preceding participant demonstrates stable patterns in his/her intervention phase, right? And, as you mentioned, the baseline data collection should be systematic and consistent for all participants. That's the two most important things I'll have to keep in mind, right?
I will look into linear mixed effects regression, as you suggested. Thanks a ton.
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