Cyberbullying Independent and dependent variables used in the study

In an experiment, the independent variables are the variables manipulated by the experimenter, while the dependent variables are the aspects of the experiment that are 'dependent' or affected by the independent variables. In Hinduja and Patchin's 2011 research for the Cyberbullying Research Center, the independent variables under study were the rates of cyberbullying, while the dependent variables were the characteristics associated with teens who engaged in bullying.

The study found that cell phones were the preferred method to use in cyberbullying and girls were found to be far more likely to engage in the practice. There was no distinction in terms of the racial profile of cyberbullying victims or perpetrators -- all were equally apt to engage in the crime. Other characteristics correlated with cyberbullying were a negative school atmosphere. Regarding the victims, victims were more likely to have low self-esteem and to have suicidal ideation than those students who had not been bullied.

Sampling used to gather subjects: Reliability and validity of the study

The study involved the use of longitudinal data collected from multiple sources of similar demographic groups. A February 2010 study involved a random sample of 4441 youth between the ages of 10 and 18 from a large school district in the southern United States. 37 schools were involved in the sample. The June of 2009 study surveyed a random sample of approximately 900 youth between the ages of 11 and 18 from a moderately-sized school district in the southern United States. The sample consisted of 8 different schools. The June 2007 study surveyed a random sample of approximately 2000 youth between the ages of 11 and 16 from a large school district in the southern United States from 30 different middle schools (Hinduja and Patchin 2011).

Other than the regional specificity, the study sampling was designed to be sufficiently...

The use of different school districts and different sampling sizes was designed to make use of the 'law of large numbers' regarding the study population, to increase validity -- namely that random samplings of large numbers of the target population are more likely to yield representative and accurate results than a small sampling size. The size of the sampling, and the fact it was taken over time, supports the validity of the study.
Reliability is demonstrated that, through three different samplings of slightly different populations within the same age range and demographic, similar results were yielded regarding the study.

How an experimental research methodology can be used to solve a management problem

Managers must often grapple with problems related to human behavior, much like the cyberbullying of adolescents being studied in the survey. Managers can survey employees of sufficiently large numbers to determine if employees are satisfied with compensation or diversity training programs or other components of their work and engage in longitudinal surveys of those attitudes, much like the designer of the cyberbullying study.

To create a truly experimental, rather than purely observational study, however, managers would have to introduce a 'change' between the control and experimental subject groups under study. For example, when measuring the effectiveness of a new sensitivity training program, the managers might survey employee attitudes and knowledge of harassment policies before the program, after the program, and then six months later, to see if the training had a measurable impact upon attitudes. The 'before' group would serve as the 'control' group, compared with the attitudes of the experimental group 'after' they had been subjected to training. In this experimental study, the conditions of the 'control' and 'experimental' group would be able to be controlled by the…