Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
¶ … Low, Stanton, Bower & Gyllenhammer (2010)
Strengths:
All women at Stave IV breast cancer, allows to moderate for stage level differences in psychological processing
Random assignment to experimental group
Control group also writes, just not expressively and about emotions
Based on social constraint theory
Used standardized scales for measuring depression and somatic symptoms
Took into account time since diagnosis
Weaknesses:
Short and infrequent writing (4 x 20 minute intervals over a period of 3 weeks)
Moderating variables (perceived emotional support; time since diagnosis) do not seem related to the writing
Perceived emotional support treated as an ancillary variable in the design, and yet was a defining feature of the hypothesis (weak internal validity)
Women received $80 for participating, which would have influenced the decision to participate
The participants had already been proactive in their psychological recovery
Homogenous experimental group.
Narrative:
The researchers hypothesized that especially among women who receive low emotional support and who were more recently diagnosed, the writing would reveal distinct improvements. However, the researchers did not control for these variables at the onset. Instead, they retroactively examined whether there was an effect based on perceived emotional support and time since diagnosis. This...
The researchers discuss social constraint theory, but the research design was not established to test specifically for social support as a variable. When the participants were asked about social support, they were asked to self-report rather than to objectively measure time spent with loved ones and other concrete measures for social support.
Other weaknesses in this study include the homogenous experimental group, which consisted mainly of well-educated whites in a specific geographic area. This means the results of the study cannot be extended necessarily to other populations and the results are not necessarily valid beyond this population. Writing for such short an infrequent times might have also led to the weak results and null hypothesis. Finally, the provision of a financial reward might also have skewed the motivations for participating.
Source: Henry, et al. (2010)
Strengths:
Narrowed down the population to focus on specific demographic variables like living in rural areas and the subsequent social isolation and lack of access to support resources.
Measures of depressive symptomology, mood states, and physical symptoms assessed at four different intervals, including immediately before the writing intervention as well as three and nine months after it.
Design was feasible, ie. it is possible for all people to have 30 minutes of uninterrupted alone time to write.
Random participant recruitment from oncology clinics, all…
References
Henry, R.A., et al. (2010). The feasibility and effectiveness of expressive writing for rural and urban breast cancer survivors. Oncology Nursing Forum 37(6).
Low, C.A., Stanton, A.L., Bower, J.E. & Gyllenhammer, L. (2010). A randomized controlled trial of emotionally expressive writing for women with metastatic breast cancer. Health Psychology 29(4): 460-466.
Validity, in essence, has got to do with the extent to which a given research study measures the accuracy of a specific concept – effectively meaning that a study can be said to have passed the validity test if it accurately mirrors that which the researchers set about to investigate. In quantitative research, as Polit and Beck (2012) point out, “researchers strive to design studies that are strong with respect
The Challenges of Dual Credit: A Research Proposal Problem Statements Dual credit or dual enrollment programs “are designed to boost college access and degree attainment, especially for students typically underrepresented in higher education,” (United States Department of Education, 2017, p. 1). With this lofty goal set, it should seem that dual credit programs would be reducing the educational achievement gap. After all, dual credit programs by definition allow all students the opportunity
Validity in research is a term that refers to the extent with which researchers are confident that they have determined causal relationships through the cause and effect they identify in their study. As a result, validity is an important aspect of research since it helps in determining whether the research design is flawed and the credibility of research findings. There are various kinds of validity that are utilized in determining
Although ethical values and principles guide all of the American Psychological Association’s (APA, 2017) ethical codes, there are different ways of interpreting and applying those ethical principles depending on the situation. Clinical and counseling psychologists have different ethical guidelines for their profession. For example, there are different ethical principles related to clients being treated by psychologists in counseling sessions versus the standards for conducting psychological research with human participants. Both
Data Collection in Leadership As a social science, leadership research may involve any type of quantitative or qualitative data collection method. Qualitative research data collection methods include observation, participant-observation, interview, and document or content analysis (“Data Collection Methods,” n.d.). Quantitative data collection methods used in leadership research may include surveys and experiments, which allow for statistical analysis, the establishment of causality between independent and dependent variables, and the tracking of results
Eveland's research design is quasi-experimental. The sample populations for the experiment are not randomly selected. There is structure to the experiment with more than one form of measurement during the research process. Quasi-experimental design includes multiple groups and multiple waves of measurement. While there were not a significant number of groups in the experiment, there was more than one. At more than one point in the experiment, measurements were