Discussion: Concerning Research Methods
Discussion: Concerning Research Methods
Discussion 3
Concerning Research Methods and the APA Ethical Guidelines
Aswer each case
Case 1: A certain psychologist was looking for the cause of failure among college students. She took a group of former students who had flunked out and a group of students who had received good grades. She gave both groups a self-esteem test and found that the group that flunked out scored lower on the test than did the group that received good grades. She concluded that low self-esteem is one of the causes of college failure and suggested further that a person with low self-esteem probably expects to fail and exhibits defeatist behavior in college, which eventually leads to failure.
What was the independent variable? What was the dependent variable and how is it measured?
Discuss the study’s design. What kind of design was used? Was this design appropriate? Why or why not?
Was the experimenter justified in her conclusions? Why or why not?
Case 2: In an effort to determine the effects of the drug chlorpromazine on the performance of schizophrenics, two clinical investigators randomly selected 20 acute schizophrenics from a mental hospital population. The patients were asked to order several stimuli along some dimension, such as ordering eight stimuli by weight. There were several tasks of this sort. All subjects first performed the tasks after being injected with a saline solution (Placebo) and then performed the tasks again several hours later after being injected with chlorpromazine. The results indicated that fewer errors were made in the chlorpromazine treatment, which suggested to the investigators that the drug facilitates more adequate cognitive functioning in this type of patient.
What do you think the hypothesis might be for this study? Is the hypothesis you selected directional or nondirectional? Why did you select a directional or nondirectional hypothesis?
Next, discuss this study’s design. What was the design? Was it appropriate? Why or why not?
What was the purpose of random selection in this study?
What is the independent variable? What is the dependent variable and how is it measured?
Are there possible confounds in this study? If so, how would you control for them?
Discussion: Concerning Research Methods
Discussion: Concerning Research Methods
Case 3: Recently, an association that represented police in New Jersey complained that the incidence of cancer was unusually high among police officers who used radar guns in tracking the speed of drivers. The association brought suit against the state, claiming that those officers who used these radar guns had an incidence of cancer 18 percent higher than a comparable group of government workers from the state park service who were randomly selected for comparison purposes. The comparison sample and the police officers were matched on educational level, age, gender, and years of service. The sample was large: 283 police officers and 231 park workers.
Was the case justified? Why or why not? (Be sure to support your answer with reference to the strengths and weaknesses of the design, and consider possible confounds.)
What kind of study is this? What are the problems associated with this kind of study?
How would you improve the study?
You must start a thread before you can read and reply to other threads
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.