Analyzing a Scholarly Research Article

¶ … Longitudinal Effects of Violent Media Usage on Aggressive Behavior -- The Significance of Empathy by Mossle, T., Kliem, S. & Rehbein, F. This research work by Kliem, Rehbein, and Mossle (2014) was aimed at scrutinizing, in detail, the association of aggressive behavior with exposure to media violence. The study employed a sizeable longitudinal sample of students to ascertain, in particular, empathy's contribution as a potential mediator in this link.

(1) Does a longitudinal association of significance exist between aggressiveness and violent media usage? (2) Does empathy significantly mediate the association between aggressive behavior and violent media usage? (p. 108) Sampling Procedure Sample for the research was selected using Berlin Longitudinal Study Media, a longitudinal research, spanning four years and utilizing a control group, with 1207 3rd -6th graders, representing Berlin.

After gaining approval for conducting the study from the school authorities of Berlin state (Berlin's Senate Department for Education, Youth and Sports), every class having more than 15 students was chosen for sampling (1009 classes comprising of 24,352 children) out of a total of 1042 3rd grade classes in Berlin (holding 24,714 children, as of May 2005). A random sample of 80 classes belonging to different schools was drawn; out of these, 47 took part in the study (i.e., 1129 children). Thus, researchers employed convenience sampling technique, which worked well for selecting classes having over 15 students (p. 108).

Researchers designed a longitudinal research for a closer examination of how media use (particularly video games and television) at kids'/teens' recreational time impacts them, their performance at school, their intellectual development, and their behavior in society. The 'learning project' developed practical media education concepts for students, teachers, and parents, in collaboration with the participant schools, while also systematically analyzing the long-run impacts of deliberate, self-determined, limited media consumption on diverse age groups.

Research Design This research utilizes the quantitative meta-analysis technique to aggregate its discoveries from empirical studies; this is valuable in systematic integration of findings derived from individual researches (p. 106). The technique of meta-analysis transcends mere findings summarization and assessment; it performs statistical evaluations on similar researches' outcomes. On the whole, meta-analysis denotes a considerable improvement over conventional study review techniques, by offering a more comprehensive account of the present status of studies in a given area as well as a more accurate estimate of interventions'/treatments' effects. Instruments Used 1.

Questionnaires -- employed on Media Consumption measure. For broader contextualization of violent media usage's lifetime prevalence, respondents were asked whether they ever played 16- or 18- rated PC games or watched 16- or 18- rated movies (p. 108). The questionnaire was also utilized for gathering information for Empathy measure. 1. Interview -- this was employed on the measure of Aggressive behavior, for ascertaining from the wrongdoer's perspective of the in-school and outside-of-school contexts.

Respondents were asked to answer, on a 0-1 scale (yes=1; no=0) whether they did one out of a list of things, outside of school, together with frequency of doing them in the past one year (which was an open-response question).

Participants were posed four questions with regard to aggressiveness: whether another child was hurt by them to the extent that he/she was injured or ended up crying; whether they threatened and got hold of things from another child; whether they set fire to something or played with it; and whether they vandalized windows, street lights, telephone booths, etc. on purpose (p. 109). Data Analysis To treat missing information, researchers employed chained equation approach.

Further, for testing gender differences and alterations over time, researchers ran repeated analyses of variance using IBM's SPSS version 19 for every included variable. STATA/SE v.10 was employed for multi-level data assessment. For evaluating empathy's role as the mediating component in the link between aggressiveness and violent media usage, structural equation modeling was carried out, employing 3 measurement times. In case of each of the 3 constructs, researchers employed latent variables that were estimated from clear indicators. Weak measurement.