Single-case research designs have emerged as a major methodological strategy in some areas of social science research. Yet, single-subject research is plagued by a number of methodological, conceptual, and philosophi cal problems that have a bearing on the efficacy of these strategies in applied settings. In this article we review briefly some methodological issues in single-case design, including factors such as baseline trends, variability in the data, and duration of phases. In addition, conceptual issues include the range of outcome questions that sin gle-case designs are designed to address as well as establishing the generalizability of findings. Beyond these issues, a number of pitfalls and hassles are likely to emerge, including philosophical objections to singlecase research design, replication problems, measure ment paradigms that seem incompatible with design assumptions, and the integration of single-case designs into practice.
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