Choose at least five (5) of the questions below to respond to (include the questions in your evaluation to indicate which questions you’re answering). Incorporate the readings for this week into your responses using citations and references.
- Describe how the researchers found participants for their study (sampling selection). Where did they go to recruit participants? How did they recruit participants?
- Describe the inclusion and exclusion criteria for study participants. What characteristics were the researchers looking for in potential participants? What characteristics in a potential participant would lead the researchers to not include that individual in the study?
- What are the limitations and/or biases either that you can pick out or that the authors stated in the methods they used to gather participants for their sample?
- Describe the size (you may need to Google this!) and major characteristics of the population studied. Remember, the population is the group of individuals that the researchers want to study, but it is not always possible (because of time, money, size, etc.) to include every single individual from the population in the study itself. They have to gather a sample of individuals from the population that will allow them to generalize their study results to that larger population.
- If you were a researcher who was looking to replicate (repeat) this study, what information do you need that is missing from the procedures described by the authors?
- How are the design and procedures appropriate for examining the research question or testing the hypotheses of the study?
- What do the authors say about the internal validity of their research design? If they don’t say anything, what do you think about the internal validity of their research design?