EPN-V2

MALKA214 Experimental Design and Functional Analysis Course description

Course name in Norwegian
Eksperimentelle design og funksjonell analyse
Weight
10.0 ECTS
Year of study
2025/2026
Course history
Curriculum
SPRING 2026
FALL 2025
Schedule
Programme description

  • Introduction

    Single-case research designs and functional analyses are characteristics of behavior analysis. Their historical and scientific basis are covered in MALK4000-403 (Behavior Analysis and Radical Behaviorism); the application in experimental settings in MALKA213 (Laboratory Exercises — Experimental Analysis of Behavior). These experimental methods are used in order to demonstrate functional relations between changes in independent variables and their effects on dependent variables. The topics of this course are theoretical and practical concerns of experimental designs in general, and basic concepts, principles, and methods of statistics.

  • Required preliminary courses

    For kull 2025:Coursework requirements from MALK4100 and MALKA211 or equivalent must be approved to participate and submit coursework requirements in MALKA214.

    For tidligere kull: Coursework requirements from MALK4000-401, MALK4000-403, and MALKA211, or equivalent must be approved to participate and submit coursework requirements in MALKA214.

  • Learning outcomes

    On successful completion of the course, the student has the following learning outcomes classified as knowledge, skills and competence:

    Knowledge

    The student can

    • describe and discuss reliability
    • describe and discuss the term generality
    • describe and discuss validity, threats to inference, and different types of validity
    • explain the role of replications in experiments
    • discuss variability related to single subject designs and group-designs
    • describe and discuss advantages and disadvantages of various experimental designs
    • explain repeated measurements and when to conduct such measurements
    • describe fundamental elements of inferential statistics, including hypothesis testing
    • describe and discuss experimental methods for conducting reinforcer assessment and the functional analysis of behavior
    • describe the basic principles for hypothesis testing using the binominal and normal distributions
    • describe central concepts of network theory and the contribution of social network analysis to the study of behavior

    Skills

    The student can

    • design simple experiments
    • run and interpret common statistical tests
    • interpret graphical displays of behavioral data and to present data in graphical form
    • discuss ethical considerations in functional and statistical analyses

    Competence

    The student can

    • analyze data in a behavior change project

  • Teaching and learning methods

    Campus-based lectures, discussions and exercises are the main teaching methods. Students read selected texts in advance for each day of class, and everyone is expected to participate in class through questions and through joining in discussion. Feedback is used on written assignments is used. Students must have download and installed SPSS on their computers before the course starts.

  • Course requirements

    None

  • Assessment

    Individual school examination (multiple choice-test), 3 hours. Exam questions are in English.

  • Permitted exam materials and equipment

    Authorized materials: Norwegian-English dictionary

  • Grading scale

    Grade scale A-F.

  • Examiners

    The exam is automatically graded. An examiner will quality assess the automatic grading. An external examiner is regularly involved in the development of the exam questions, at a minimum of every third examination.