need help in journal of reading, exercise and i theory

FCS681: Three-Part Journal (3/4/15)

The most interesting topic in this reading was the one-shot case study. I did not know that such a study existed. This made me think why researchers would consider using this type of study? Is it to get quick results? Is it to do a small mock study to identify flaws? Is it because they were limited on budget, researchers, and participants? I feel like this type of study may be used as a small pilot-like study to determine if the posttest had useful questions or if instructions given to the treatment group needed improvements/editing. Since this type of study usually has weak internal validity, I can’t imagine researchers using this method to conduct a large-scale study on a life-changing topic. I also found the one-group pretest-posttest design interesting. I liked how they implemented a pretest, implemented the treatment, and then implemented the posttest. I feel like this gives more accurate results. I do think that lacking a control group may skew the results, because if you have nothing to compare it to, how will you know how effective a treatment is? I found the examples about teaching methods on the creativity of elementary school children very helpful, because my group and I are also planning to see the effects of a program on elementary school children, but we will have a control group.

The assigned reading builds upon the course content by continuing to provide the reader with detailed explanation and examples of validity. I feel that the topic of random selection and random assignment will be useful for my group and I once we start to work on the methodology part of the thesis proposal. Since the purpose of our study is to compare how a nutrition and physical activity intervention program will affect obese elementary school children in different schools, this section made me question if random assignment will be possible within one classroom. I liked how the reading explained that random assignments might not be possible in public schools because students within the same class often follow the same curriculum. This is extremely helpful, because my group and I can take this information and set up an intervention program that randomizes which schools get the treatment as oppose to which students get the treatment. It will be easier to implement nutrition and physical activity programs to an entire classroom as oppose to different children within one class, and it may also reduce threats.

This reading will be helpful in my personal life because I am planning to continue researching. I found the section about “mistakes sometimes made in conducting experiments” extremely helpful. Since I have only been involved in the data collection, entry, and analysis part of a research study, I have not had the chance to actually develop my own study. Before reading this section, I thought I had an idea of how to develop and conduct a study. However, after reading about the possible mistakes, I feel like I have no idea how to develop a solid study. I have considered the variables such as history, limitations, bias, and loss of subjects, but I never considered regression, maturation, and a weak experimental treatment. I feel like there are so many potential threats to validity and it is so hard to prevent them. I also found the reading on the different types of experiments very helpful. Many students are unaware that there are different types of experiments, such as a laboratory experiment and a field experiment. I was unaware that these two types of experiments were considered “true experiments.” The reading also explains the difference between an experiment and a correlation study, which I found interesting because I used to consider all studies as experiments.