Hello everyone! My name is Raegan, and I am a junior at Tallulah Falls Upper School! I live in Toccoa, Georgia. I play on the varsity golf team at school and participate in many other extracurricular activities such as the tome society and global citizens awareness panel. Outside of school, I enjoy painting, listening to music, hanging out with friends, and playing with my dog named Hazel! I decided to take this course to gain basic knowledge about how our brains function, as this is a career field I am interested in, specifically military psychiatry.
After reading the two studies, it became evident that there were flaws in the conductors' research. The results were concluded from cross-sectional research, which is beneficial to the researcher in the sense that it takes a shorter amount of time to collect data as opposed to longitudinal methods, but is "limited by differences that exist between the different generations" (Spielman, 2014, p.47). This can promote flaws in one's research because the data has not been studied over a period of time to visualize the evolution of the topic. In fact, the article states that "longitudinal data....[has] been lacking" (Christakis, 2004, p.708). This provides direct evidence that the participants had not been studied long enough to gather concise data. The study was a survey, which is a research technique that involves gathering data from a small group of people and generalizing it for a much larger group. With generalization comes a plethora of other issues, such as the inability to "collect the same depth of information on each person that would be collected in a case study" (Spielman, 2014, p.46). Additionally, participants are bound to give subconsciously altered data from time to time, making it more unreliable than other research methods.
The results of the given study show that of the 2623 children being surveyed, a mere ten percent displayed attention problems at age seven. A logistic regression model was used to finalize the research, which can cause additional potential flaws in the research, as it is "the process of modeling the probability of a discrete outcome given an input variable" (Edgar & Manz, 2017, para 1). This points back to the need for longitudinal research to show how the data develops over time without generalizing a result based on a simple input value. Therefore, the results can be labeled as possibly flawed because the process of collecting data was perhaps not thorough enough.
One topic discussed in the reading that helped me analyze the given study was the different types of research in chapter two. It provided me with a deeper insight as to how the researcher's data could possibly be flawed given their methods of collecting it. I also appreciated the visual of the hierarchy of needs, proposed by Abraham Maslow, because it helped show how a necessary foundation of human needs is required to uphold their mental well-being.
Thank you so much for reading!!
References
Christakis, D.A., Zimmerman, F.J., DiGiuseppe, D.L., & McCarthy, C.A. (2004, April). Pediatrics, 133(4), 708.
Edgar, T.W., Manz, D.O. (2017). Logistic Regression. Science Direct, from www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/logistic-regression.
Elias, M. (2004, August 30). Frequent TV Watching Shortens Kids' Attention Spans, USA Today, www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-04-05-tv-kids-attention-usat_x.htm.
Spielman, R.M. (2014). Psychology. Openstax.