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. 1999 Fall;22(2):83–85. doi: 10.1007/BF03391983

Statistical inference in behavior analysis: Friend or foe?

Alan Baron
PMCID: PMC2731340  PMID: 22478323

Abstract

Behavior analysts are undecided about the proper role to be played by inferential statistics in behavioral research. The traditional view, as expressed in Sidman's Tactics of Scientific Research (1960), was that inferential statistics has no place within a science that focuses on the steady-state behavior of individual organisms. Despite this admonition, there have been steady inroads of statistical techniques into behavior analysis since then, as evidenced by publications in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. The issues raised by these developments were considered at a panel held at the 24th annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Orlando, Florida (May, 1998). The proceedings are reported in this and the following articles.

Keywords: research design, statistical inference, experimental control, single-subject design

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Baron A. Experimental designs. Behav Anal. 1990 Fall;13(2):167–171. doi: 10.1007/BF03392533. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

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