Question

A statewide evaluation of the Education Now and Babies Later (ENABL) program was conducted to assess its ability to increase adolescents’ knowledge and beliefs about pregnancy prevention. Using a quasi-experimental research methodology, middle school students were divided by homerooms into a treatment group (n=900) who got the ENABLE program and a comparison group (n=700) who got nothing beyond classroom activities as usual (CAU). Participants in both in ENABL and CAU homerooms completed a pretest and posttest reflecting knowledge and beliefs about pregnancy (PSI: Postponing Sexual Involvement); the higher the PSI score, the more accurate the pregnancy knowledge. Participation was anonymous and student ID numbers were used to match pretest and posttest. Statistical tests reveal significant differences on posttest scores between ENABL and CAU groups and the ENABL group showed marked improvement from pretest and posttest scores, whereas the CAU group did not.

1. What is the implicit or unstated hypothesis of this study?

2.Using the information presented above, describe a conceptual framework, which may inform this research, in other words, support a rationale for doing such a study

3.Name one threat to internal validity and explain how this threat was reduced or present in this study

4.What ethical standards must have been met to conduct this study?

5.What is the dependent variable in this study?

6.Operationally define the dependent variable

7.At what level of measurement is the dependent variable measured? Why do you say this?

8.What is the primary independent variable in this study?

9.At what level of measurement is the independent variable measured? Why do you say this?

10.How many participants are in this study?

Answer 1

1. The implicit hypothesis of this particular study is that there is a significantly positive effect of ENABL program on Postponing Sexual Involvement score of adolescents.

2. Unwanted pregnancy and increasing abortions are being reported in various areas of the society. This are high sources of stress and are leading to various mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, trauma and are also leading to suicides in extreme cases. Sexual involvement at an early age is also affecting the hormonal development of the individuals and may also lead to problems of psychological development such personality development and also issues like STD. Thus, programs must be developed which can properly make the adolescents aware about sexual behaviour and make them able to postpone their sexual behaviour to a more matured age. Thus, this study is highly important as it finds out the effectiveness of one such program in need.

3. One major threat to internal validity which lies in this study is the measure of traits of aggreableness and psychoticism in the individuals under study. An individual with more aggreableness and less psychoticism may get more influenced while a person with more psychoticism and less aggreableness may get less influenced by ENABL. These traits may hamper the validity of the results as ut can be said that the results are due to the personality traits of the adolescents and not due to the program. Thus, an administration of a NEO-PI Questionnaire in the pretest phase may turn useful for the internal validity of the study.

4. The major ethical standards to be taken under consideration are of 'confidentiality' which states that the participants identities and data will be kept a secret, 'Informed consent' which deals with taking the permission of the participants about gathering data from them after informing them about the study requisites and purposes, 'debriefing' which deals with the fact that if there are some information about the study which needs to be kept secret from the participants for the purpose of the study then the participants must be informed about a possible deception and 'right to leave' which allows the participants to quit the study whenever they feel like if they feel uncomfortable. Thus, these ethical standards must be met for making the study an authentic and rightly conducted one.

NOTE: We are supposed to answer only four subpart incase of multiple subpart, thus, answering the first four subpart of the lot. Incase you need answers to all subpart please do post them individually.