ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the need for systematic methods for summarizing single-participant research, describes various approaches for quantitative synthesis, and reviews conclusions of completed synthesis efforts. Areas of disagreement center on the issue of whether outcomes of single-participant research studies can be represented by a single common metric and, if so, which metric is the most useful. The first consideration to be made in summarizing single-participant research is whether any quantitative metric can be employed appropriately—whether, in fact, data from single-participant research should be aggregated in any fashion. P. L. Busk and R. C. Serlin recommended use of one of three separate procedures for computing single-participant effect sizes (ESs), depending on the assumptions the reviewer is willing to make. ESs for single-participant studies were calculated using the method suggested by Busk and Serlin, which assumes a normal distribution and equality of variances and intercorrelations across baseline and treatment phases.
