MetaTOC stay on top of your field, easily

An Examination of Social Validity Within Single-Case Research With Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

, , ,

Remedial and Special Education

Published online on

Abstract

In this article, we reviewed social validity in single-case research studies that focused on interventions for students who have either been identified as having, or as at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. This review focused on studies from four peer-reviewed journals known to publish single-case research with this population: the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, and Behavioral Disorders. We reviewed 22 studies published from January 2008 to November 2011 that met inclusion criteria. The purposes of this review were (a) to evaluate how researchers are addressing social validity as defined by Horner and colleagues (2005) and (b) to explore how single-case researchers are measuring social validity. Overall, results indicated that the research studies included in this review addressed socially important questions within typical contexts, but that most did not address social validity explicitly.