The Effectiveness of a 4-Week Program for School - Essay Example

? Critique of a qualitative research article Critique of a Qualitative Research Article The study applied both descriptive and correlational quantitative approaches. 2. The main purpose of this study was to study the effectiveness of a 4-week program for school age children in decreasing behaviors that expose the children to risk and increasing safety behaviors (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 3. The main question in the study was whether a peer group intervention is effective in reducing physical risk taking behaviors through the influence of children’s media behaviors. The question was answered by comparing children in to groups; the intervention group and a wait list control group (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 4. The study shows no any stated hypothesis. 5. The study was an original one and not a replication of past studies because it was the first study to apply longitudinal and repeated measures design in children. This is unique because previous studies were done through the cohort design. Through the unique approach, the study added new information to what was already from previous studies. First, the study found that self-determined health judgment reduced significantly over the 6 month period after intervention. This decline portrayed a change from intrinsic to extrinsic direction unlike previous studies that used the cohort design, which found the change to move from extrinsic to intrinsic direction (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 6. The study participants in this study were children aged 8 to 9 years and their mothers. In selecting, the study participants, children and their mothers were supposed to self identify as either white or Latino. The second criterion was that the child should be in good health, which meant that the child should not have any acute or life threatening medical condition. In addition, the child was supposed to have the ability to attend to daily activities such as attending school. Thirdly, the mothers we required, in addition to speaking Spanish, English or both, were also required to be able to read in either of the two languages for them to be able to fill questionnaires that were written at fourth to sixth grade levels. Finally, both the child and mother were required to reside in the same household (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). The independent variables in this study were; one, consistent use of media rules in families under investigation. The other independent variables were age, ethnicity, and poor affective responsiveness in the family. The dependent variable was the level of children involvement in risk taking behaviors. The study fails to provide a definition of each of the independent variables, as well as the dependent variable (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 7. The sample population was made of study subjects of the White and Latino origin. There were 16 sites that offered a total of 34 groups with about 4 children in a group. There were a total of 122 children aged 8 to 9 years and their mothers. The number of the white participants was 58 while the Latinos were 64. The randomly selected sample comprised of 58 girls, who represented 47.5% of the participants, and 64 boys, which was 52.5%, of the study participants. The groups were well balanced in terms of ethnicity and gender (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). Based on the objective of the study, which was to research on school age children to reduce their risk taking behaviors and increase safety behaviors, I feel that the study also ought to have included teachers who teach in the schools attended by the children under investigation. Therefore, the study was to some extent not comprehensive because teachers spend more time with the children than the mothers and are much aware of children behaviors. By targeting two ethnic groups; the Whites and the Latinos, the population appears not to be a generalizable one because there are varying factors among ethnic groups that would determine the level of exposure to risky behaviors by children. Therefore, ethnicity being one of the variables under investigation may not give a give a general representation of the situation (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 8. The study applied a number of methods to collect data. First, there was the use of questionnaires to collect data related to family characteristics. The parent questionnaire gathered information on education, social, and financial, descriptive data. There was also the self perception profile questionnaire that was used to collect data on children’s self perceptions of competencies. Secondly, there was the use of designed instruments and software to collect data family functioning, cognitive, child’s coping strategy, child’s health behaviors, motivation, and family media. The instruments were also used to measure safety behaviors and risk taking (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 9. The instruments that were used in the study included the Health Self Determinism Index-Children (HSDI-C) to measure motivation. The other instrument was the Media Quotient for measuring family media habits and beliefs regarding effects of media. The reliability coefficient for this instrument was expected to be low due to the wide range of topics that were evaluated. The validity of the instrument was evident because of the negative correlations between children’s exposure to television and each of the indices. The Family Assessment Device was also used in the study to assess on family functioning. The validity of this instrument was reported to a range from 0.48 to 0.53 and the reliability ranged from 0.69 to 0.86. The other instrument was the Child’s Health Self-Concept Scale for measuring cognitive (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 10. Data analysis was done using different approaches. The t test was applied in comparing the intervention and control groups. This was done by checking for significant variations between the studies groups at baseline. The other approach was the use of regressions to determine factors from the baseline that were responsible for children’s safety and risk taking behaviors. Actual analyses were done using SPSS 15.0 while mixed modeling was done using SAS version 8 (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 11. The results obtained from the study indicated that total scores on risk taking were higher in boys than in girls. The same was also high in healthy weight children compared to overweight children. After having adding controls on gender, weight, ethnicity, and group membership, results obtained indicated that increased exposure to television was related to less usage of safety behaviors. The same showed reduced usage of positive media. Further results showed that increased exposure to television correlated with the child acquiring negative health self concept. The baseline study established that five variables had an impact on reducing safety behaviors. These variables were found to be poorer problem solving in a family, increased usage of alternative media in families, unhealthy affective engagement in a family, increased television viewing times in children, and increased usage of positive media in families (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). The study found no major variations between coping strategies, cognition and health perceptions, general health behaviors, children’s affect, and motivation. The results further indicated that there was a significant decline in self-determined health judgment, but there was no interaction between groups and time. The study reported that exposure to television had declined from 18 hours to 17 hours, although the decline was not statistically significant. It was also noted that, there was an increase in safety behaviors, in the intervention group. At the end of the 6 months, the intervention group showed an increase in consistent usage of media rules and a decline in the usage of alternative activities. The discussed results were of high relevance to study because they helped in determining whether the interventions were effective in responding to the study question (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 12. The study team managed to answer the research question using data that was statistically significant. 13. One of the limitations reported on this study was the influence of intervention activities that were practiced by the children at home, as well as the parental material delivered at home. This was thought to be a limitation because of the significant rise in safety behaviors that was probably caused by the highlighted interventions. The other limitation was the psychological status of the mothers under investigation. This was in relation to a study that reported that there are direct effects and high use of safety behaviors in mothers with high coping skills and high stress levels (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 14. In conclusion, the researchers point out that the results of their study are essential in developing strategies that are essential in the development of injury science. This development will promote a child and family approach for nurses working in primary care and community environments (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). 15. The study identified that future studies should be conducted using high risk taking populations. In addition, future studies should apply approaches that improve the social/emotional environments in order to refine the interventions (Chen & Kennedy, 2009). References Chen, J. & Kennedy, C. (2009). Changes in childhood risk taking and safety behavior after a peer group media intervention. Nursing Research 58 (4), 264-273. Read More