Critique of Research Design
The purpose of this critique is to analyze the design of a research study conducted by; Donna Kazemi, Maureen Levine, Jacek Dmochowski, Mary Nies, and Linman Sun called “Effects of Motivational Interviewing Intervention on Blackouts Amoung College Freshman”. It was accepted in January 21st, 2013 and was published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship.
This study was conducted on 188 volunteer freshmen at a southern university. Kazemi et al. (2013) state the goals of the study were to see if motivational interviewing (MI) worked as an effective intervention to reduce blackouts among freshman, who partook in high-risk drinking or drug use, during a sixth month period. Additionally the study sought to see if there was an association between blackouts among freshman based on race or gender. The research design was a longitudinal study in which students were given motivational interviewing (MI) as an intervention at baseline, two weeks, three months, and. six month time periods while enrolled in school. Assessments of participants drinking and blackouts were taken on baseline day and at six months. Researchers assessed for changes to participants number of blackouts, drinking or drug use (Kazemi et al., 2013).
Longitudinal design was used in this study to monitor the same participants over six months. A threat to the validity of this design can be drop out of participants. This can be attributed to the length of a longitudinal study. However in this study researchers were successful at maintaining all participants. The researchers asked all participants in advance if they could commit to all four sessions and if they could not then they were not used as part of the study. Therefore, all 188 participants selected completed the entire program (Kazemi et al., 2013).
Longitudinal design validity is also dependent upon using set time intervals that make sense with the research being performed. This study does not say explicitly express how intervals for MI instruction were chosen. Furthermore, the study does not explain why or how intervals for pre and post assessments were decided. This is important because past research may have told how long it takes for MI to be successful and at what intervals it needs to be performed in order to yield the best outcomes for participants. This data may have changed the length of the study or the time intervals and potentially changed results.
Furthermore, the time intervals for the design didn’t mention how students’ academic calendar and time off of school may have affected data gathered at certain intervals.
There are two groups of people pertinent to this project. Members of AA will provide information through sharing their experiences in interviews to those that will read and learn from the project, such as future alcoholics, new AA members, college students, and everyone in between. The members of the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are the most valuable first-hand accounts, and will be the first to supply information with this project. Though a few members may be less than cooperative to provide personal information, most are more than willing to share their experiences in order to help others in any way possible. In the first visit to the AA meeting, several o...
College student drunkenness is far from new and neither are college and university efforts to control it. What is new, however, is the potential to make real progress on this age-old problem based on scientific research results. New research-based information about the consequences of high-risk college drinking and how to reduce it can empower colleges and universities, communities, and other interested organizations to take effective action. Hazardous drinking among college students is a widespread problem that occurs on campuses of all sizes and geographic locations. A recent survey of college students conducted by the Harvard University School of Public Health reported that 44 percent of respondents had drunk more than five drinks (four for women) consecutively in the previous two weeks. About 23 percent had had three or more such episodes during that time. The causes of this problem are the fact that students are living by themselves no longer with parents or guardians; they earn their own money; students need to be a part of a group, be accepted; and they have the wrong idea that to feel drunk is “cool.”
Longitudinal Research Using the UK Millennium Cohort Study. N.p., 2 Mar. 2013. Web. 08 Apr.
We all know what it is like to wake up in the morning, with our head aching, and our body feeling like it was just hit by a train. College students world wide know this feeling. These are the results of binge drinking. The question of why college students continue to submit themselves to alcohol is unknown. While many reasons are given, the cause generally falls into one of three categories, peer pressure, insecurity, or to help solve there problems. But the one thing students don’t realize are the consequences and effects that binge drinking can have, health and social problems are just a few.
The ultimate intention of motivational interviewing and guided change talk is that it will result in a strong commitment to change for the client. There is a higher likelihood of behavioral changes actually occurring (Hettema, Steele, & Miller, 2005). Data from early research completed by Miller on MI with drinking showed how change talk can predict behavioral changes. Resistance is common in motivational interviewing. The data shows that the more than a clients resists changes and positive change talk, the more likely they are to continue with the behavior that needs to be changed, such as drinking, drug abuse, or criminal offending (Miller & Rose, 2009).
Clients with substance abuse issues are growing at a high rate. These clients can come in to an environment where they are told to go seek treatment for their substance abuse, or they are not even told to seek treatment but they do anyway. The clients that are less motivated are often thought of as people that do not care and so they are pushed aside from those that are willing to come to treatment. This paper is going to focus on engaging clients who have a substance abuse diagnoses using Motivational Interviewing as a way to engage them in the beginning stages of treatment. These clients could be coming into either an outpatient or inpatient setting; however, the articles I chose focus on an outpatient setting.
According to a national survey conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “almost 60 percent of college students ages 18–22 drank alcohol in the past month, 1 and almost 2 out of 3 of them engaged in binge drinking during that same timeframe” (NIH). Binge drinking culture refers to the recent rise and normalization of college age students drinking excessively. The CDC describes binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol level to 0.08grams within two hours” (CDC). For many young adults, college is one of the first times they will experience complete freedom. This freedom often leads to partying, which goes hand in hand with the consumption of alcohol. However, since the age at which
This article is about a longitudinal study, but only focuses on the last two (of three) experiments which were spaced 6 months apart.
Ukachi, Madukwe Ann. "Motivational Interview; Evidence Based Strategy In The Treatment Of Alcohol And Drug Addiction." IFE Psychologia 21.3-S (2013): 174-196. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.
D'Amico, E., Osilla, K., & Hunter, S. (2010). Developing a Group Motivational Interviewing Intervention for Adolescents At-Risk for Developing an Alcohol or Drug use Disorder. National Institue of Health, 28(4), 417-436.
Binge Drinking is an intriguing phenomenon that many college students take part in all across the country. The issue of binge drinking has been a problem on college campuses for decades. Binge drinking has many horrible effects, but the problem starts with the causes for it. If the causes could be controlled then the issue would not get out of hand. Many college students give different causes for their drinking problems, and experts on the subject have their explanations as well. The problem is, while growing through adolescence anything can become an excuse for drinking, such as ¡§its Thursday the day before Friday, we need to drink¡¨ or, ¡§it¡¦s the last Wednesday of the semester, lets get some beer.¡¨
According to National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, more than 1,800 college students die from alcohol-related causes every year, while about 800,000 are being assaulted by other students because of drinking. About one in every four college students who binge drink also admit that they have experienced academic problems. Binge drinking is drinking multiple drinks in just a few hours to get drunk. Despite the fact that college drinking has caused many issues, it has not been stopped, yet. In article, “Why Colleges Haven’t Stopped Binge Drinking,” McMurtrie (2014) explains that this issue has not been resolved yet because many people still see alcohol abuse as general issue instead of seeing it an individual behavior. Because colleges
The design of a study defines the study type (descriptive, correlational, semi-experimental, experimental, review, meta-analytic) and sub-type (e.g., descriptive-longitudinal case study), research problem, hypotheses, independent (IVs) and dependent variables (DVs), experimental design, and, if applicable, data collection methods and a statistical analysis plan. Research design is the framework that has been created to find answers to research
Research philosophy, refers to the development of knowledge adopted by the researchers in their research (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). In other words, it is the theory that used to direct the researcher for conducting the procedure of research design, research strategy, questionnaire design and sampling (Malhotra, 2009). It is very important to have a clear understanding of the research philosophy so that we could examine the assumptions about the way we view the world, which are contained in the research philosophy we choose, knowing that whether they are appropriate or not (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009), three major ways of thinking about research philosophy are examined: ontology, epistemology and axiology. Each of them carries significant differences which will have an impact on the way we consider the research procedures. Ontology, “is concerned with nature of reality”, while epistemology “concerns what constitutes acceptable knowledge in a field of study and axiology “studies judgements about value” (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009, p110, p112, p116). This study is intent on creating some “facts” from objective evaluations which are made by the subjects. Therefore, epistemology will be chosen for this study as the way of thinking about the research philosophy.
...cting information on individual behavior would be one of these issues. Another is the form of study that seems to most informative and useful for this area of learning. Longitudinal studies are not only time-consuming but also require a great deal of gathering information and data.