Module 5 lab

Use your paper topic to answer the questions below. In this lab you will conside rhow you could use a nonexperimental or quasiexperimental design and a factorial design to explore your research topic of interest. The questions are below and on this file: Module 5 lab.docx Download Module 5 lab.docx

  that youc an use as a template to complete your assignment.  An example of a completed assignment follows the questions below.

A. Nonexperimental and Quasi-experimental designs

Using your final paper topic develop a study using one of the following designs: Posttest-only nonequivalent control group design, pretest-posttest nonequivalent control group design, one group pre-test posttest design, time series design.

1. What is the topic?

2. Which design are you developing?

3. Who are the participants? What are the groups or conditions?

4. What is the quasi-independent variable?

5. What is the dependent variable?

6. Briefly describe the study.

7. What is the hypothesis you are testing and what outcome would you expect?

8. What is one advantage and one disadvantage of your design?

B1. what would you have to change to make it a true experimental design rather than a nonexperimental or quasi-experimental design?

2. Would it be feasible to do this?

3. Why would or wouldn’t it be a good idea to change your design to a true experiment?

C. Now make it a factorial design. Note: you might have to search the literature on your topic a little in order to answer the part C questions.)

1. What independent variable would you add to your design above to make it a factorial design?

2. Why does the variable make sense given your research topic?

3. Describe the newly modified design

4. Would you expect there to be an interaction, why or why not?

Here is an example:

1. What is the topic?

Does participation in organized sports improve children’s self-esteem?

2. Which design are you developing?

A pretest-posttest non-equivalent control groups design.

3. Who are the participants? What are the groups and/or conditions?

The participants are 50 children ages 8 – 10 signing up to play recreational softball, baseball or soccer for the first time in Oviedo Florida.  The control group will be a randomly selected group of 50 children the same age who live in Oviedo and are not signing-up to play a team sport.

 The conditions are playing a sport/not playing a sport.

4. What is the quasi-independent variable? Playing a sport/not playing a sport

5. What is the dependent variable? Score on a measure of self-esteem.

6. Briefly describe the study.

When the children sign-up to play a sport they will complete a questionnaire measuring self-esteem. The children not playing sports will complete the questionnaire during the same two-week period when kids sign up for sports. Both groups will complete the questionnaire again at the end of the sports season, defined within two days of the last game of the season.

7. What is the hypothesis you are testing and what outcome would you expect?

The hypothesis is that playing organized sports increases self-esteem so I would expect that the kids in organized sports would have higher self-esteem scores after the sports season and the control group would have no change in scores.

8. What is one advantage and one disadvantage of your design?

An advantage is that the control group would control or history effects. A disadvantage is that there is no random assignment, so the groups could differ, for example, maybe kids with high self-esteem are more likely to play sports.

B1. what would you have to change to make it a true experimental design rather than a nonexperimental or quasi-experimental design?

I would have to randomly assign kids to either play or not play sports.

2. Would it be feasible to do this?

Not really – some may not like sports, or their parents wouldn’t let them play.

3. Why would or wouldn’t it be a good idea to change your design to a true experiment?

It would have better internal validity if it were an experiment, but it wouldn’t be feasible so I would keep it a quasi-experimental design.

C. Now make it a factorial design. Note: you might have to search the literature on your topic a little in order to answer the part C questions.)

1. What independent variable would you add to your design above to make it a factorial design?

I would add a measure of athleticism.

2. Why does the variable make sense given your research topic?

Sports might help the self-esteem of kids who are athletic more than kids who are not athletic.

3. Describe the newly modified design

2 x 2 factorial design with athletic kids in sport, athletic kids not in sports, and non-athletic kids in and out of sports. Athleticism is a nonexperimental and in or out of sports is quasi-experimental

4. Would you expect there to be an interaction, why or why not?

Yes, I think that there would be an interaction between athleticism and playing sports on self esteem. Althletic kids would show bigger gains in self-esteem than would non-athletic kids. Non-athletic kids might have smaller gains in self-esteeem or even have lower self-esteem.