The Design Technique - Research Paper Example

Article Critique March Table of Contents Introduction 2 Research Problem 2 Hypothesis 3 Theoretical Conceptual Framework 3 Study Design 4 Population 4 Sample Design and Criteria 5 Variables 6 Power 6 Results 7 Generalizabilty of Results 7 References 8 Introduction In quantitative research, the main aim is to determine the relationship between the independent variable(s) (ANLs) and the dependent variable(s) (speech and medication levels). Quantitative research is about generation of large-scale statistical data and employs the use of questionnaires, structured interviews, and controlled experiments etc. as data collection tools. Quantitative research designs are both descriptive and experimental. In descriptive design, the research participants have measurements taken once, while in experimental design the measurements can be taken before and after the administration of the experimental condition or in as many times as possible. On the other hand, qualitative research is an exploratory research technique which tries to understand participants habits/attitudes and behaviours and employs the use of interviews and case groups as data collection methods. Qualitative research is more involving making many people to shy away from participating. This is so because most of times attitudes and behaviour observation is important and takes a lot of time. To understand the effect of medication on the level of acceptance of background noise employed quantitative research design. The purpose of this paper is to critique the attached research study report putting more considerations on the research problem, hypothesis, design, sampling and generalizability of the results. Research Problem It is known from research done that people with ADHD/ADD perform poorly than people without ADHD/ADD. Findings to this effect suggest this is true but not exhaustively. The purposes of this research it to evaluate the above assertion using a different research study putting more considerations on the hypothesis, design, sampling and reporting. Hypothesis The research paper attempts to proof the hypothesis (Melida, C. et al. 2005); H0: People with ADHD/ADD perform poorly than people without ADHD/ADD H1: People with ADHD/ADD perform the same as people without ADHD/ADD Always, the null hypothesis assumes non-effect while the alternative assumes there is a significance difference relationship between the experiment and the control groups. In this case, the formulation of the research hypothesis did not factor in this assumptions as it straight talks of the alternative as the hypothesis to proof. The formulated hypothesis should be as follows; H0: People with ADHD/ADD perform the same as people without ADHD/ADD H1: People with ADHD/ADD perform poorly than people without ADHD/ADD Theoretical Conceptual Framework The researcher in this research paper uses exploratory research approach by reviewing literature from secondary sources on the strengths of carrying out research by comparing the do and don’ts with what someone else did. In this research study, this is manifested in the literature review where the author quotes best practices from other related research works. Casual research approach where the participants are allocated to the different research conditions is another approach applied. This is evident in this research study as the female participants are allocated to the different medications at random over time. The only problem with the two approaches is the fact that the results cannot be generalized to be for the whole population thus going against sampling assumptions that the results be inferred to the whole population. Study Design The research design employed in this research work is quantitative research where the participants’ acceptable noise level and un-comfortable noise level were recorded at different background noise levels (Melida, C. et al. 2005). According to Maxwell (1996), in quantitative research, the main aim is to determine the relationship between the independent variable(s) and the dependent variable(s). Quantitative research designs are both descriptive and experimental. The design technique employs the use of case groups as data collection methods where different groups are subjected to different noise levels and medication at different times. This design technique is more involving as measurements are taken at different stages. The failure to get a bigger representative sample makes the results not to be generalized as the sample is not representative of the whole population to warrant generalizability. Another disadvantage of this technique is the fact that the in-depth data collection methods limits further scope in the research study design in addition to it being expensive in terms of time and money. The use of both qualitative and quantitative research design is encouraged since it is exhaustive and each design technique compliments each other’s disadvantages. Population The population in this research study is people already diagnosed and registered with ADHD/ADD by the University of Tennessee. Generally in any research work the research population depends on the restrictions placed on the participants. In this case, the restrictions are that the participant must have been diagnosed with ADHD/ADD and were willing to participate. According to Marczyk (2005), research ethics dictates that research participants should be allowed to make their own decisions on the participation in the research study. This should mainly be through an informed consent where the participant is fully made aware of any research benefits, confidentiality of the research information and protection of the participant as a human being. However, according to Arnold and Myers (2005), research participation by consent at times affects the sample size as in this case. To avoid this, Arnold and Myers suggests that researchers should extra-inform participants of the sole purpose of the research study, may be to mention that the findings are purely meant to inform decision makers and are not meant for any financial gain at all. Sample Design and Criteria A sample of 15 females is used for this research study. There are issues in the sample selection in this research study the first being the failure to take into consideration the total population of the people with ADHD/ADD and registered with the University of Tennessee. Further, there is no mention of the error in the bound of the estimation of the sample. If the whole population and the error on the bound of estimation are known, then a sample size will be determined easily using the formula shown below; n = N / (1+N (e2)), (where N = total population of the people registered with ADHD/ADD while e = error term). Further, it is always important to understand the population one is dealing with. Heterogeneous populations call for the use of stratified sampling and not just simple random sampling which assumes that all participants have the same traits. In this case, other factors may be affecting the noise levels and not just the presence of ADHD/ADD and thus should be factored in the research study design. One important aspect that is followed well in this research study is the fact that the participants who did not have normal hearing sensitivity had their participation terminated at the earliest opportunity. This is a good practice and will ensure that the results are comparable since participants are at equal conditions; no one is disadvantaged. A sample should always be an un-biased representative of the whole population. In this regard, male and female participants should equally be represented in order for the research to attain the required scientific rigor. If not, then the sample results should be weighted in order to achieve equal representations. In this case, only females are used but the aspect of gender is not taken into consideration. Variables The research study variables included; Acceptance Noise Levels (ANLs), Most Comfortable Noise Levels MCL, Background Noise Level (BNL) and were all measured with medication and without medication and at different speech levels (Melida. et al. 2005). Acceptance Noise Levels (ANLs), Most Comfortable Noise Levels MCL, Background Noise Level (BNL) are factors at level 1 while the medication and speech levels are considered as categorical variables and the one way analysis of variance attempts to determine whether the levels are statistically different at 5% level of significance. In this quantitative research design, Acceptance Noise Levels (ANLs) is the dependent variable with speech and medication levels as the independent variables. Power The power of a research study depends on the level of significance (alpha) chosen. Once this is set then the decision on which hypothesis (null or alternative) is straightforward (Creswell 2006). The conclusions are based on the p-value in such a way that if the p-value alpha, the null hypothesis not rejected. In this case the ANLs is statistically different with medication from without medication since p=.005 (p Read More