1. Minimizing bias and decreasing threats to internal validity is important to experimental designs. How
will a researcher use the three criteria, manipulation, randomization,
and control to minimize bias and decrease threats to internal validity?
2. Many times, researchers state that randomized clinical trials (RCT) provide the strongest level of evidence for an individual study when using an evidence-based model. As a researcher, why do you think this statement is true?
3. When conducting an experimental design, how
will you as a researcher, use intervention fidelity to increase the
strength and quality of the evidence provided by the findings of the
study?
4. What is your cosmic question? (This is a
question you ask your peers to respond to based on the chapter discussed
in class this week i.e. Quantitative studies).
Initial post. Respond to 2 of your mates
2
Response 1
1) The three criteria that clinical researchers
use to minimize bias and decrease threats in their work include
manipulation, randomization, and control. For instance, the research by
Smith & Hasan (2020), uses manipulation to reduce bias and lower
bias by identifying an independent variable from the research and
investigating the effect on a dependent variable to avoid any possible
bias and the effectiveness of the topic on research (Smith & Hasan,
2020).
2) The research also uses randomization to allocate
participants in the research when receiving the treatment effectively.
It aids in increasing the probability of the two variables under
research to get the treatment and make a good judgment. Randomization
ensures there are equally comparable groups under the research. The
research also uses control groups to serve as the baseline in
determining the effectiveness of the study treatment. The researcher
uses the control experiment to produce results that are scientific and
reliable to use (Smith & Hasan, 2020). The control also ensures that
the threats of the experiment are minimized. The statement on
randomized clinical trials providing stronger evidence on the clinical
study is true because it ensures the clinical trial covers the majority
of the target people of the treatment without any bias in the variables
being used.
3) A researcher uses faithfulness in increasing the
quality and strength of his study, correctly implementing the identified
intervention’s crucial components. Fidelity normally ensures that there
are no deviations or manipulation of the identified and targeted
intervention (Smith & Hasan 2020).
4) My comic question
conacring the chapter on quantitative studies during the week is a
follow; how can the researcher’s failure to follow randomization as a
method of minimizing bias affect the whole study?
Reference
Smith,
J. D., & Hasan, M. (2020). Quantitative approaches for the
evaluation of implementation research studies. Psychiatry
Research, 283, 112521.
Response 2
1.
Minimizing bias and decreasing threats to internal validity is
important to experimental designs. How will a researcher use the three
criteria, manipulation, randomization, and control to minimize bias and
decrease threats to internal validity?
Manipulation,
randomization and control can be used by a researcher to help minimize
or eradicate bias and decrease threats to internal validity. When a
researcher uses randomization, they are trying to give every participant
the same probability of either being in the experimental or control
groups and is not personally or intentionally placing participants in
one group or the other. In addition, LoBiondo-Wood and Haber, 2018 found
that “randomization decreases selection bias and ensures that other
variables that could affect change in the dependent variable will be
equally distributed among the groups reducing systematic bias”
(LoBiondo-Wood and Haber, 2018).
With manipulation, it helps to
minimize bias and threats to internal validity by ‘changing up’
something about the study. The manipulation in the study may be a
“specific type of drug, teaching plan or treatment” (LoBiondo-Wood and
Haber, 2018).
A control in a research study helps reduce bias and
threats to internal validity by holding something in the experimental
research constant, which in turn may have some degree of influence on
the dependent variables (LoBiondo-Wood and Haber, 2018).
2.
Many times, researchers state that randomized clinical trials (RCT)
provide the strongest level of evidence for an individual study when
using an evidence-based model. As a researcher, why do you think this
statement is true?
I think that using randomized clinical trials
(RCT) may be the strongest level of evidence for an individual study
because the researcher is not picking and choosing the participants or
who will or will not be in a certain group and receiving or not
receiving treatment etc. in respect to the study at hand. Randomized
clinical trials also helps minimize any bias and enables/allows the
researcher to analyze cause-effect relationships when studying
interventions and outcomes by evening-out characteristics of the
participants in both groups that may be a reason for any discrepancies
with respect to the study intervention (Hariton and Locascio, 2018).
3.
When conducting an experimental design, how will you as a
researcher, use intervention fidelity to increase the strength and
quality of the evidence provided by the findings of the study?
When
using intervention fidelity in a research study, the researcher is
basically being faithful about how he/she is placing participants in
groups (either experimental or control), how and where they are
receiving interventions with respect to the research study and the
environment, place, etc. each participant is subjected to during the
study (LoBiondo-Wood and Haber, 2018). By implementing these things as a
researcher, there is less room for bias and heightens the strength and
quality of the study (findings).
4. What is your cosmic
question? (This is a question you ask your peers to respond to based on
the chapter discussed in class this week i.e., Quantitative studies).
My
cosmic question: If a researcher knows nothing about his participants
that could affect the research study, does not use randomization but
rather personally picks and chooses participants to go in either the
control or experimental group, is there still a risk to internal
validity and bias?
References:
Hariton, E., &
Locascio, J. J. (2018). Randomised controlled trials – the gold standard
for effectiveness research: Study design: randomised controlled trials.
BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology, 125(13),
1716. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0528.15199
LoBiondo-Wood,
Geri, and Judith Haber. Nursing Research: Methods and Critical Appraisal
for Evidence-Based Practice. Elsevier, 2018.
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