1Single-case research methods are an important facet of applied sport psychology because they 2 provide a framework for researchers and practitioners to outline intervention effects across time with 3 individuals or groups. This paper reviews the research published since Hrycaiko and Martin's (1996) 4 milestone overview of single-case research in sport psychology. Specifically, we examined the 5 literature between 1997 and 2012 and located 66 studies that met our inclusion criteria of assessing 6 interventions in sport psychology. The review summarizes the body of research, outlines trends, 7 considers the limitations of the extant literature, and identifies areas that require further investigation 8 for future single-case research. order to facilitate an understanding of effective interventions and to evaluate applied practice 5 (e.g., Bryan, 1987; Hrycaiko & Martin, 1996; Smith, 1988; Wollman, 1987; Zaichkowsky, 6 1980). The focus of the last milestone paper on this area revealed that SCDs were underused 7 compared to group designs in evaluating applied sport psychology interventions (Hrycaiko & 8 Martin, 1996 Traditionally, scientific development in psychology has predominantly relied on the study of 10 groups of participants via the use of nomothetic (i.e., a tendency to generalize) group-11 orientated designs to establish broad, general, and universal laws (Clark-Carter, 2010).
12However, major scientific advances have also been made through the careful evaluation of 13 idiographic (i.e., a tendency to specify) approaches including one or a few individuals (e.g., The unique feature of SCDs is the capacity to conduct experimental investigations 10 with one or a few cases. Central to the method is the ability to rigorously evaluate the effects Single-case research in sport psychology 6 had traditionally been presented as a mechanism with which to monitor changes in 1 observable behavioral outcomes rather than psychological constructs as measured by 2 psychometric questionnaires (Kazdin, 1982). Finally, the work of Hrycaiko and Martin 3 (1996) remains the last landmark paper regarding the application of SCDs to sport 4 psychology. Within their paper, the authors outlined some fundamental characteristics of 5 SCDs (e.g., procedural reliability, social validation), and debunked some misunderstandings 6 which may have accounted for the paucity of SCD research in sport psychology (note that 7 there were only 12 published articles in sport psychology journals up to 1994). First, they 8 outlined that SCDs are a more robust alternative to the case study given that they can 9 demonstrate internal validity and also external validity via the replication of intervention 10 effects across settings, participants, and outcomes. Second, visual inspection of data in SCDs
11is an appropriate analysis procedure as long as criteria for change are closely followed. SCDs 12 (i.e., the alternating-treatment design option) can be used to compare alternative intervention Single-case research in sport psycholog...
