Using SSD for R in the Classroom: Unintentional Visual Analysis

Well, our Social Work Practice and Evaluation Research class just completed its second week.  So far, we have been devoting the first part of each class to teaching the students the fundamentals of SSD for R which we think has been extremely helpful.  The students clearly seem more comfortable navigating RStudio than they did last week, and they seem a bit more computer savvy, in general.

So far, the goals for using SSD for R have simply been pragmatic - learning how to use the various functions.  During our first class this week, we entered intervention data into our Excel spreadsheets and then imported all of this into SSD for R.  The lesson then focused on creating a simple line graph that showed multiple phases (both baseline and intervention).  We showed the students how to add a vertical line between phases and then label each phase. We did this for each of the two behaviors that we were tracking for our hypothetical client.  We also showed them a handy-dandy searchable PDF that is located on the ssdanalysis.com website  and is useful for identifying each of the functions based on what is trying to be created.

Today, the second class for the week, we continued the lesson based upon a student's request - he wanted to know how to view two graphs simultaneously.  This was a great jumping off point for a discussion about the impact of an intervention on multiple indicators, so this was our hands-on lesson for today.  We showed the students how to use the plotnum() and ABplotm() functions to build multiple graphs in one window.  We then practiced using data from our hypothetical client.

Here's what the students produced:

This was SUPPOSED to be the end of the lesson for today; however, it wasn't.  One student observed how the behaviors moved in tandem, particularly during the baseline.  Then, another student noted how variable the data was during the baseline and how could you make comparisons between the baseline and the intervention, if the baseline data weren't stable - what was it actually representing?  Good point!

While we couldn't address this issue entirely today, this provides a great entrée into subsequent lessons on the baseline.

For more information on SSD for R, visit our website or e-mail us.