Question

A researcher interested in the treatment of depression developed an intensive treatment program designed to teach people to think positively. The researcher began the study by recruiting 50 college students who received extremely low scores on a well-validated measure of self-esteem. Each of the 50 participants agreed to attend four 1-hour therapy sessions per week for two weeks (for a total of eight sessions). Thirty-seven of the 50 original participants remained in the study and completed all eight sessions. At the end of the 2-week period of the study, the mean self-esteem score for the 37 participants who received all of the therapy showed a large and statistically significant increase. The researcher concluded that his program is an effective treatment for depression.

Name at least four issues with this study and explain why.

Answer 1

1. The sample size was not chosen randomly. Only one type of people i.e college students were chosen.

This is incorrect as data should be collected from different types of field and that too randomly.here the selection was specific.

2. The sample size was small. For a whole population selection of just 50 people seems to have less effect on the expirement carried out. It leads to lesser efficiency.

3.the experiment was carried out for a short time and that too with one data set. The same experiment should have been done with two or more sets of 50 people and then evaluated. Because probability in statistics is defined as the chance of occurring a particular event when the experiment is carried out randomly infinite number of times.

4. Out of 50 people 37 stated and only they were up for evaluation. The rest 13 who left midway their datas should also have been calculated and.also the reason for their leave. This would have lead to more efficiecy about the conclusion made.

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