Research methodology and applications

Business (general)

Please list sections according to instructions

Exercise 1.1: Review of Research Study and Consideration of Ethical Guidelines

Option 1: Stanford Prison Experiment

Go to: http://www.prisonexp.org, the official site for the Stanford Prison Experiment.

What do you think the research questions were in this study? List 2 or 3 possible research questions (in question format) that may have been the focus of this experiment.

What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? Does natural or innate evil exist, or is evil situational? Are certain people simply born "bad apples" or are they made evil by "bad barrels"?

What is "reality" in a prison setting? This study is one in which an illusion of imprisonment was created, but when do illusions become real? How quickly and easily will 'ordinary men' adjust to the roles as prisoners, guards and administrators?

What is identity? Is there a core to your self-identity independent of how others define you? How difficult would it be to remake any given person into someone with a new identity? If you were a guard, what type of guard would you have become? How sure are you?

Data Collection Methods:

1) Identify the methods used to collect data in this study.

The researchers had a videotape system in place to record all the events in the 'prison', and all the 'cells' were secretly bugged with microphones so all the conversations of the 'prisoners' and 'guards' could be recorded. Very soon, however, the experiment itself broke down and even the research staff fell very quickly into the roles as wardens and superintendents of the 'prison'. Phlip Zimbardo noted that instead of observing and recording the experiment, he had begun to think like a prison warden, concerned with the security of his facility, plots and conspiracies among the 'prisoners' to escape or revolt, and with possible threats against 'his men' -- who after all were simply a group of randomly selected college students. In a few days, the experiment had become real, and Zimbardo was no longer concerned with gathering data or what the independent or dependent variables might have been, but with maintaining order and discipline in his 'prison'. The experimenters had become part of the experiment. Zimbardo and the staff did observe that the worst behavior on the part of the guards occurred during the night shift, when they thought the experiment was not running and they were no longer being observed. They were wrong, but the act that they thought they could more easily get away with cruelty when they thought they were not being seen and recorded by the researchers was also a significant finding. The 'guards' were even more likely to push their mistreatment to the limits when they imagined they would not be discovered and there would be no consequences for their actions. As a field experiment rather than a scientific one, the only data collected was observational, although naturally it did offer certain disturbing insights into human social behavior in situations of confinement under authoritarian rule.

2) Who were the participants in the study? Did they volunteer or were they selected? If selected, how were they selected? Were they free to leave the study?

All the participants were white, middle class males from the U.S. And Canada who happened to be in the Stanford, California at the time. They were all undergraduates attending various universities and answered an ad in a newspaper requesting volunteers for an experiment that was planned to last for two weeks. They were paid $15 per day for participating, and all signed forms indicating that were taking part in the study voluntarily and had been informed that they would be randomly assigned as 'guards' and prisoners'. They were all given standardized diagnostic interviews and psychological tests. Of the 24 selected, none had prior criminal records or histories of mental illness, and half were randomly assigned to play the role of 'guards' and the other half as 'prisoners'. They were free to leave the study if they requested, although this had to be done with the permission of the staff. As it turned out, six of the 'prisoners' were so badly traumatized that they quit the experiment early, and Philip Zimbardo terminated it completely after six days. Both guards and prisoners adapted to their roles far more quickly than anyone expected in an artificial situation like this, and in fact became their roles in a very short time. None of the 'guards' quit, though, and none even called in sick or come late to his shift. One possible criticism of the study is that the way the subjects were selected through a newspaper ad may have appealed to individuals with a greater disposition toward violence.

3) What about anonymity and confidentiality of the participants?

In the study itself, none of the 'prisoners' or guards used their real names, and the 'prisoners' were also deliberately dehumanized by being referred to only as numbers. Even up to the present, the real names and identities of most of the people who participated in this famous (infamous?) experiment remain unknown to the general public, unless they have chosen to reveal these themselves. Most have not, even when they have appeared in television interviews from time to time over the years their real identities are still concealed. We have never known the real name of the heroic 'prisoner 416', who went on a hunger strike to protest conditions in the 'prison', only that he later became a clinical psychologist working with inmates in the San Francisco jail. Nor do we know the true identity of "John Wayne," the most sadistic of the 'guards', only that he later became a 'mild-mannered real estate broker' who looked back on what he had done in the experiment with great shock and remorse, as if it had been some other person he had never really known.

4) Issues of informed consent? Even if participants sign informed consent forms, if they begin to get harmed or show signs of distress, physically or psychologically in an experiment (or interview), should the researchers intervene?

Some of the prisoners had to leave the experiment early because they were so traumatized and dehumanized by the experience that they broke down completely, and ended up crying hysterically. For showing 'weakness' in this way they would also be taunted and humiliated by the 'guards' and even their fellow 'prisoners'. They forgot that this was all an experiment and they could leave at any time, but began to fall into the role of powerless and alienated prisoners, completely at the mercy of the 'authorities'. In fact, even Zimbardo and the experimenters quickly came to assume that any 'prisoner' who started crying or acting hysterically must be faking in hopes of winning release. Even the prison chaplain and members of the 'parole board' quickly assumed these roles, almost as if they were in a movie, while some 'prisoners' even requested that the chaplain contact their parents and help them obtain legal assistance so they might be released from the 'prison'. Zimbardo later noted that 'prisoners' whose personality tests revealed a high degree of authoritarianism adapted best of all to their role as prisoners, and endured longest in the study.

When one of the standby 'prisoners', #416, took the place of one of the others who had been sent home, he was appalled by the conditions in the 'prison' and immediately went on a hunger strike. For this act of defiance the 'guards' threw him into solitary confinement all night even though this was against their own rules. Nor was 416 considered a hero by his fellow prisoners, but only a "trouble maker" who would make their own lives even more difficult. They felt no sympathy for him at all, and as "old hands" after five days in the prison simply warned him that there was no possibility of escape or release and that he should simply obey the rules. As 416 put it after the experiment ended: "I began to feel that I was losing my identity, that the person that I called Clay, the person who put me in this place, the person who volunteered to go into this prison -- because it was a prison to me; it still is a prison to me. I don't regard it as an experiment or a simulation because it was a prison run by psychologists instead of run by the state. I began to feel that that identity, the person that I was that had decided to go to prison was distant from me -- was remote until finally I wasn't that, I was 416. I was really my number."

Only when some of the parents of the 'prisoners' found a lawyer who came to interview them did it become clear to Zimbardo that they would have to end the study earlier than planned. Zimbardo's girlfriend at the time, "Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D. brought in to conduct interviews with the guards and prisoners, strongly objected when she saw our prisoners being marched on a toilet run, bags over their heads, legs chained together, hands on each other's shoulders. Filled with outrage, she said, 'It's terrible what you are doing to these boys!' Out of 50 or more outsiders who had seen our prison, she was the only one who ever questioned its morality." When she said that she had seen a side of Zimbardo that was not very appealing and now wondered whether she wanted to have any relationship with him at all, he decided that the time had come to end the experiment. He had become so adjusted to his role as 'administrator' and to the routine degradation and brutality of the 'prison' that he no longer noticed it. Maslach and Zimbardo were married a year after the Stanford experiment.

Ethical concerns:

1) Using the ASCA and/or APA Code of Ethics, discuss some of the ethical codes that applied to the study you reviewed.

As Zimbardo described it, this experiment was never simply a study of a few "bad apples" committing terrible acts, but what happens when people are placed in a "bad barrel," and even they best of them become corrupted and degraded by the institution itself. Certainly the Nazi camps were examples of such "bad barrels," as was Abu Gharib in Iraq, and to a lesser extent, most jails and prisons in the U.S. And other Western countries.

According to the APA Code of Ethics, subjects in experiments must be volunteers and give informed consent prior to participation. The Code makes clear that beneficence, respect for individual autonomy, and justice must guide all researchers in such studies. Their work must produce more good than harm and respect the human rights of the individual, which obviously did not happen in this case. There seemed to be very little restraint on the actions of the 'guards', and no firm guidelines about what actions would or would not be permitted to maintain order in the 'prison'. Nor was anyone on the research staff willing or able to enforce such guidelines if they had been in effect, since they began to act as 'administrators' rather than neutral, objective observers. There was no ethics supervisor or inspector on the spot to overrule the 'guards' and 'administrators' when they degraded and humiliated the 'prisoners', strip searched them, made them clean toilets with their bare hands, placed bags over their heads, or locked them in solitary confinement. Although Zimbardo claims that in his follow ups, no permanent physical or psychological harm was done to the 'prisoners', it very easily could have been in a situation like this.

2) Do you believe the researchers acted ethically? Support your answer with documentation from the ASCA or APA Code of Ethics.

Within the guidelines of the American Psychological Association that existed at the time, the experimenters acted ethically. Philip Zimbardo asked the APA to review the entire experiment, which determined in 1973 that it had been conducted within ethical guidelines. All the participants were volunteers and had given their informed consent to take part in the experiment, although Zimbardo later stated that he should have ended it even sooner when he saw that the 'prisoners' were truly being traumatized, and that the 'guards' were not just acting any more. He got caught up in his own role as being in charge of the 'prison' without even being aware of it. This was a potential violation of the Conflict of Interest rules in the APA Guidelines, since the chief experimenter also became a participant, although Zimbardo had no idea that the roles assigned in the experiment would become so quickly and thoroughly internalized.

There is a real question about whether the volunteers were fully informed at the outset of the experiment of exactly what kind of degrading treatment they might expect, and if they still would have consented had they known. Although they were free to leave the experiment, they very quickly became so traumatized and dehumanized that they seemed to lose all capacity of free will or free choice, and became child-like and dependent on the will of their captors -- as if they had indeed regressed to childhood with a loss of individual autonomy. Zimbardo and his colleagues only allowed them to leave the experiment when they began to demonstrate hysterical, paranoid or other obviously pathological symptoms, with some of the prisoners suffering from shock or obviously on the edge of an emotional breakdown. All of the participants claimed that they were merely acting out the roles expected of them, although none had any real experience of prison beyond portrayals in movies, television and popular culture, nor did the 'guards' have nearly the same degree of training and supervision as their counterparts in real prisons. There was a real potential here for violation of the avoidance of harm principle in the APA Guidelines. None of this affected Zimbardo's later career, however, and he even became the head of the APA.

3) How did the outcome of this experiment impact the future of research?

As Zimbardo put it, the toughest, must brutal guard in the 'prison' received the nickname "John Wayne" from the prisoners. About one-third of the 'guards' seemed to particularly enjoy their authoritarian role, and acted with great harshness and sadism, yet the researchers had not picked up any such traits during their interviews and psychological tests." Zimbardo asked: "Where had our 'John Wayne' learned to become such a guard? How could he and others move so readily into that role? How could intelligent, mentally healthy, 'ordinary' men become perpetrators of evil so quickly? These were questions we were forced to ask." About one-third of the 'guards' were 'good guys' who even did small favors for the 'prisoners' and treated them fairly humanely, while another third were the sort of 'tough but fair' types who followed orders and upheld the norms and regulations of the 'prison', but without arbitrary cruelty or sadism. All of these types are familiar ones in any such situation in real life, whether prisons or even concentration camps. Of course, the more lenient or humane guards also risked being criticized by their stricter colleagues for being to easygoing with the prisoners.

At the other extreme, one of the prisoners was nicknamed "Sarge" who stood out "because he was so military-like in executing all commands." Certainly this was the type of prisoner the 'guards' and 'staff' preferred, and by the end of six days they had broken all of the remaining prisoners completely, so they simply obeyed the orders of the 'prison authorities' without question. This raises the question of how someone like "Sarge" could adapt to the role of broken, helpless, complaint prisoner so quickly and completely.

At the end of the study, "all the prisoners were happy the experiment was over, but most of the guards were upset that the study was terminated prematurely." This raises the question of just what psychological rewards the 'guards' had obtained by this grant of arbitrary power over other human beings, including the ability to physically, sexually and emotionally abuse them, and control every aspect of their lives, including eating, sleeping and use of the bathroom and shower facilities. Was this authoritarian (or totalitarian) personality innate, or learned through popular culture, family life and 'normal' socialization?

A month after the Stanford experiment concluded, the inmates at Attica penitentiary in New York rebelled and took over the prison. This revolt was crushed when Governor Nelson Rockefeller sent in the National Guard, resulting in the deaths of many guards and prisoners. Zimbardo stated that: "one of the major demands of the prisoners at Attica was that they be treated like human beings. After observing our simulated prison for only six days, we could understand how prisons dehumanize people, turning them into objects and instilling in them feelings of hopelessness. And as for guards, we realized how ordinary people could be readily transformed from the good Dr. Jekyll to the evil Mr. Hyde."

Over the past thirty years, however, the American criminal justice system has become far harsher and more degrading than it was in 1971, and also has far more inmates under its control -- more than any other country in the Western world. As Zimbardo put it "The question now is how to change our institutions so that they promote human values rather than destroy them. Sadly, in the decades since this experiment took place, prison conditions and correctional policies in the United States have become even more punitive and destructive. The worsening of conditions has been a result of the politicization of corrections, with politicians vying for who is toughest on crime, along with the racialization of arrests and sentencing, with African-Americans and Hispanics overrepresented. The media has also contributed to the problem by generating heightened fear of violent crimes even as statistics show that violent crimes have decreased. There are more Americans in prisons than ever before. According to a Justice Department survey, the number of jailed Americans more than doubled during the past decade, with over 2 million people in jail or prison by 2005." This does not reflect well on a supposedly democratic society. Even so, it does not seem likely that such an experiment could be replicated again in a manner that adhered to ethical guidelines.

Exercise 1.2: Definitions and short answers

1) What are some of the purposes of research?

Pure research is conducted simply for the sake of learning something and obtaining new knowledge, without any particular goal or application in mind. Original or primary source research has a goal of discovering something or gaining new knowledge that was not previously known. In the case, the researcher must have sufficient background to be aware of what is unknown and a method for finding out more about the unknown, such as observation, experiment, surveys or interviews. This type of research can be predictive, explanatory, or descriptive. Secondary source research is the type most commonly undertaken by undergraduates, and which develops conclusions, descriptions, comparisons, explanations and analyses based on the work of others -- usually experts in their fields.

2) Identify four steps of the scientific method.

Identify a problem or research question; develop and test a hypothesis; analyze the results and conclusions; repeat the work.

3) What is a research question? Make up and write 3 research questions using topics of personal interest. Be sure to properly state the research question.

A research question states the purpose of a study or experiment in one or two sentences, and may be summed up as simply as "What is the effect of x upon y?" For example, one question could be "What is the effect of alcoholism on pregnancy?" Or "How does advertising effect the smoking habits of adolescents?" Or "Has the incidence of depression been increasing in children in the last 30 years?"

4) Identify independent and dependent variables

An independent variable is one that affects another variable, while the dependent variable is the one being affected by the dependent variable. In the first example above, alcoholism is the independent variable that is having an effect on pregnancy, the dependent variable.

Exercise 1.3: Evaluation of a Research Study

1) What was the purpose of this study?

The purpose of the study was to determine whether media reports of suicide would influence the behavior of adolescents and make them more likely to consider suicide -- a phenomenon known as "cluster suicides" and behavioral contagion. Previous studies had indicated that cluster suicides (or suicidal contagion) was similar to copycat criminal behavior and heavily influenced by television news reports, particularly if the suicide involved a celebrity or other prominent person (Steede and Range, 1989, p. 167).

2) What was the research question that was studied in this experiment? (If you believe there are more than one research question, list each one.) Be sure to write the research question as a question.

Does viewing a video about a high school student whose two friends committed suicide increase suicidal ideation in adolescents?

3) Identify the independent and dependent variable of this study.

The independent variable is the video discussing the suicidal ideation of a female high school student while the dependent variable is the suicidal ideation of the group of adolescents watching the video.

4) What was the hypothesis that was being tested?

The hypothesis being tested was whether media reports about suicide would increase the likelihood of suicidal thoughts and behavior of adolescents who viewed these reports, and to what degree -- if any. The assumption was that such reports would most likely increase suicidal ideation in adolescents, as noted in previous studies.

5) Who were the participants? How were they selected?

116 male and female high school students from a rural public school system in the South, age 14-17, 74% were female and 115 white. All were volunteers who obtained parental consent for participation in the study and also signed consent forms themselves.

6) What methods were used to collect data to test the hypothesis?

The students were divided into three groups, all of which watched a video of an actress playing the role of a high school students speaking with a guidance counselor. They were told only that she was in distress for some reason. The first group received an information sheet stating that she was upset because two friends had committed suicide, while the second group was told that her two friends and died in an airplane crash and the third (control) group received no information.

All three groups completed the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFI), which uses a Likert-type scale with responses ranging from 1 (not at all important) to 6 (extremely important). Among the factors analyzed in this questionnaire were survival and coping beliefs, responsibility to family, fear of suicide, fear of social disapproval and moral objections to suicide.

All three groups also completed an 11-item questionnaire that also used a Likert scale about the causes of the distressing situation in the video and the degree to which they would choose various behavioral alternatives in response to it, such as substance abuse, suicide, driving recklessly, seeking help, and so on (Steede and Range, p. 168).

7) What ethical codes applied to this study or should have been considered? Was the researcher ethical (why or why not)?

The study was ethical in that Steede and Range obtained informed consent from the students and their parents, and all the participants were volunteers. They also debriefed the students about the nature, purpose and methodology of the study, and "in order to minimize any potential negative effects of participation in the study…they were also given a presentation of general information about suicide, some possible warning signs, and some appropriate local resources to utilize should the need arise" (Steede and Range, p. 169).

8) What were the outcomes of this study? What data were obtained and how was it used?

There were no statistical differences between the three groups on the 11-item questionnaire, while on the RFI only "the fear of social disapproval evidenced significant differences among groups." The suicide condition group had significantly higher fears of social disapproval than the airplane accident or control group. Adolescents were also unlikely to admit that they would commit suicide, regardless of what they had seen on television. All groups also indicated a strong moral disapproval of suicide, perhaps for religious reasons given that the group was made up of rural Southern adolescents (Steede and Range, p. 170).

9) Do you think this was a good study? Why or why not?

As Steede and Range conceded (p. 171) one problem with the study was that watching a video about a stranger in distress because of the suicide of two friends does not have the same emotional impact on adolescents that the suicide of two of their actual friends and acquaintances might. Even though they were asked to identify themselves with the student in the video, adolescents might have difficulty "empathizing with the problems of another individual," although it is possible that the previous studies were wrong and that knowledge of another person's suicide may not increase suicidal ideation among adolescents. For them, the reaction of friends, family and school officials to suicide and the social standing of the person who committed suicide may be more important factors.

10) What changes would you make to this study (if any)? Other comments?

One possible change to the study would be to repeat it among different groups besides rural, Southern white adolescents, in case this group is a statistical outlier. Would rural (or urban) black adolescents have the same reactions, for example? In addition, the video might be changed to induce more of an emotional impact, such as news reports about the deaths of famous celebrities by suicide or in plane crashes, but that would mean a redesign of the study and the control group since they would not all be watching the same videos.

Exercise 2.1. This exercise has three parts (A, B, & C). Please read each section carefully then complete the chart on page 2.

Part A: Variables of Quantitative Research Studies

Study 1:

Independent Variable: Aerobics

Dependent variable: Depression

Population: Depressed individuals in a beginning aerobics class

Research Question: What effect does aerobics have on depression in individuals in a beginning aerobics class?

Hypothesis: Aerobics has no effect on depression.

Study 2:

Independent Variable: Multicultural training

Dependent variable: Cultural sensitivities of counselors

Population: Counselors who deal with clients of other cultures.

Research Question: What effect does multicultural training have on the sensitivity of counselors to clients of other cultures?

Hypothesis: Multicultural training has no effect on the sensitivity of counselors to clients of other cultures.

Study 3:

Independent Variable: N/A

Dependent variable: N/A

Population: Licensed professional counselors

Research Question: What are the types of ethical complaints made against licensed professional counselors?

Hypothesis: This is a survey or a study that will describe the most common types of ethical complaints made against licensed counselors.

Study 4:

Independent Variable: N/A

Dependent variable: N/A

Population: Graduate students.

Research Question: What is the relationship between scores on the GRE and actual performance in graduate school?

Hypothesis: Scores on the GRE have no relationship to actual performance in graduate school.

Study 5:

Independent Variable: Anti-depressants

Dependent variable: Depression

Population: Depressed patients

Research Question: What effect do anti-depression medications have on depression?

Hypothesis: Anti-depression medications have no effect on depression.

Study 6:

Independent Variable: Group guidance techniques

Dependent variable: Self-esteem of children

Population: Children of recently divorced parents

Research Question: What effect do group guidance techniques have on the self-esteem of children of recently divorced parents?

Hypothesis: Group guidance techniques have no effect on the self-esteem of children of recently divorced parents.

Study 7:

Independent Variable: N/A

Dependent variable: N/A

Population: First-year college students

Research Question: What are the career development needs of first-year college students?

Hypothesis: An analysis of the most important career development needs of first-year college students, based on survey data.

Study 8:

Independent Variable: Drug and alcohol intervention programs

Dependent variable: Substance abuse

Population: Adolescent substance abusers

Research Question: What effect do drug and alcohol intervention programs have on adolescent substance abusers?

Hypothesis: Drug and alcohol intervention programs have no effect on adolescent substance abusers.

Study 9:

Independent Variable: Credit recovery program

Dependent variable: Student graduation rates

Population: Undergraduate students

Research Question: What effect does participation in a credit recovery program have on student graduation rates?

Hypothesis: Participation in a credit recovery program has no effect on student graduation rates.

Study 10:

Independent Variable: Obesity

Dependent variable: Diabetes

Population: Obese diabetics

Research Question: What effect does obesity have on diabetes?

Hypothesis: Obesity has no effect on diabetes.

Exercise 2.2. To complete this exercise, read the research study provided to you by the instructor.

1) What was the purpose of this study?

The purpose of the study was to analyze whether the use of individual laptop computers in the classroom had an effect on math and science test scores.

2) What was the research question that was studied in this experiment? (If you believe there are more than one research question, list each one.) Be sure to write the research question as a question.

What effect does the use of 1:1 laptop computers have on the math and science test scores of middle school students?

3) Identify the independent and dependent variable of this study.

The independent variable was the use of laptop computers, and the dependent variable the effect on math and science test scores.

4) What was the hypothesis that was being tested?

The hypothesis was the question of whether or not the use of laptops would have an effect on raising standardized test scores in math and science.

5) Who were the participants? How were they selected?

The participants were middle school students (Grades 6-8) in an urban school in a middle-Atlantic state. This school had 972 students of which 81% were African-American, 13% white, 3% Hispanic and 2% Asian, with 60% at or below the poverty line. It was a poorly-performing inner-city school with low test scores and the highest grade retention rate in the district, in danger of losing its accreditation (Dunleavy and Heinecke, 2007, p. 8). Its laptop program began in 2001-02, and by 2005, 3000 students and twelve teachers in all three grade levels were taking part in it.

All the students were selected randomly with data collected by school district personnel. There were 167 participants in the study, with 113 in the control group without laptops and 54 in the treatment group with laptops. Of the 167 students, 41% were male and 50% female, 87.4% African-American, 7.8% white, 3% Asian and 1.8% Hispanic (Dunleavy and Heinecke, pp. 11-12).

6) What methods were used to collect data to test the hypothesis?

The study compared pretest scores on the Grade 5 State Standardized Test (SST) with scores on the Grade 8 SST for both the control and the laptop groups, using ANCOVA statistical analysis.

7) What ethical codes applied to this study or should have been considered? Was the researcher ethical (why or why not)?

The students were selected randomly and were not aware they were part of the study. They were simply attending school and going about the normal activities without any knowledge that researchers would study their test scores, so no consent forms were necessary. Nor did the researchers ever know the names and identities of the students since they were all given numbers. In this type of study, then, no ethics issues apply, and the study of randomized samples test scores is done routinely.

8) What were the outcomes of this study? What data were obtained and how was it used?

There was no significant difference between the control group and laptop group on math test scores, but there was on science test scores, especially for boys. There were also some gender differences in scores on English and writing tests, which suggested that "laptop instruction is more effective in increasing English and writing achievement for male students than it is for female students" (Dunleavy and Heinecke, p. 16). The results also suggested that there might be gender differences in "technology interest and aptitude" that will be magnified in the years ahead as more technology is used in the classroom (Dunleavy and Heinecke, p. 18).

9) Do you think this was a good study? Why or why not?

Dunleavy and Heinecke point out (p. 18) that in this study "teacher effect on student achievement was not controlled," even though the students were randomly assigned to control and treatment groups. Another problem was the small size of the sample studied, especially the fact that there were only twenty males in the laptop group sample. There is also a question of whether the laptop program was more thoroughly implemented in the science classrooms, or if science subjects simply lend themselves more effectively to laptop instruction.

10) What changes would you make to this study (if any)? Other comments?

Clearly the sample in the laptop group would have to be increased, with the number of boys roughly equal to the number of girls. It would then have to be repeated in other low-performing, inner city public schools and compared with their counterparts in the suburbs. Future studies would have to look at other content areas besides math and science in more detail to determine the effect of laptop instruction. Is laptop teaching more effective in science subjects than other content areas? Other studies have shown that women have higher attrition rates in math, science and technology than men, which raises the question of why boys are "more engaged" with these subjects than girls, and if they are more socialized in the use of computers (Dunleavy and Heinecke, p. 20).

Assignment 3: Assignment 3 consists of exercise 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4.

Exercise 3.1: Research Question

In the space below, write a research question that you would like to design a research proposal around. This should be on a topic that you find interesting since you will be required to read a number of other studies related to it. Be sure to write the research question being careful to consider the variables. Do not write a question that solicits a yes/no response.

What would happen if we ran the Stanford prison experiment again, only with different types of participants? Would the outcome be any different if the subjects were women? What would happen if the subjects were chosen from the working class, minorities or inner city youth? Would they have fallen into their assigned roles as guards, prisoners and administrators as quickly and easily and still have participated in the systematic and institutionalized evil, brutality and degradation just as white, middle class males? What would happen if we put different groups of people based on class, gender or ethnicity in the various roles within the same institution?

Exercise 3.2: In the space below, list and describe some of the threats that may compromise the internal validity of a study.

Testing: subjects may be more familiar with the tests at the end of the study compared to the beginning, and this will affect the results.

Maturation: participants change over time naturally, and this may affect the outcome even more than any treatment or independent variable being studies.

History: other events that take place during the study may change the behavior of the participants, rather than any treatment or independent variable being studied.

Regression to the mean: the performance of participants on tests, whether good or bad, may be due to chance or luck rather than any treatment made during the study, and over time test scores therefore tend to regress to the mean.

Exercise 3.4: Comparison between Quantitative and Qualitative research, and Evaluations.

In the space below, describe the major differences between quantitative and qualitative research studies and evaluations. Be sure to include a brief discussion of when they are most beneficial to use.

Quantitative Studies: use numbers, statistics, mathematical models and computer analysis, with researchers having a careful, detailed plan at the outset, knowing the exact type of data they are looking for and how to classify it. Data is collected through surveys, questionnaires or technical instruments rather than by the researcher directly. It is collected in the later stages of research more than at the beginning.

Qualitative Studies: use words, pictures and other objects as data rather then numbers. Compared to quantitative studies they are often not very precise in planning, goals or design, and are more subjective than objective. Often the researcher becomes personally involved in the study rather than remaining distant and detached. This type of data is most often gathered in the early stages of a study, such as in the use of interviews.

Evaluations: evaluation of qualitative data is necessarily more subjective than quantitative data, and also less precise and efficient. Researchers themselves are the main evaluators, while quantitative data is analyzed statistically and mathematically, generally with complex computer programs. On the other hand, qualitative evaluation will have the kind of context, detail and nuance generally missing in mathematical and statistical models.

Part B: Case Analysis Project

STRENGTHS

A SWOT analysis of Frederick Smith revolving around the Big Five personality areas would describe him as extroverted, open, agreeable, conscientious, and emotionally stable. All of these traits represent great strengths in his personality to be sure and without them Smith would never have become the incredibly successful global entrepreneur that he is.

Smith's professor at Yale gave him only a "gentleman's C" for his paper on an overnight delivery service. He did not believe it would work but Smith was not discouraged (Virk, 2003, p. 159). He had a feeling of great certainty "that what we were doing was extremely important and was destined to be successful" (Virk, 2000, p. 158). He is conscientious and an extrovert, with an enthusiastic, action-oriented personality who believes in taking charge of a situation and achieving his golas.