IntroDUCTORY psychology Dr. Cole investigated the relationship between stress an

Question

IntroDUCTORY psychology

Dr. Cole investigated the relationship between stress and physical illness. She predicted that students who have more stress in their lives will also be sick more often. She persuaded a high school principal to require all female athletes in the high school to participate in her study. She explained the purpose of her research to the athletes and asked them to use a standard questionnaire form to rate the severity of their stress over the last six months. More than 250 athletes completed the form. Then Dr. Cole analyzed the forms returned by the first 100 athletes. She requested the attendance records from the nurse’s office for each of those athletes to verify the number of days absent due to illness during the same six-month period. In the summary that Dr. Cole sent to the 100 athletes and to the school principal after she had completed the study, she stated that athletes who reported more stress also experienced more frequent illness. Dr. Cole concluded that stress causes physical illness.

Respond to the following:

Define “hypothesis”. What was Dr. Cole’s hypothesis?

Was Dr. Cole’s research a correlational study or an experimental study? Discuss why.

Identify the TWO key variables that Dr. Cole used in the study.

Define “operational definition”. Describe the operational definitions of those TWO key variables.

Discuss four aspects of the study that weaken the validity of Dr. Cole’s conclusion that stress causes physical illness.

Approximately 2 double-spaced pages (450 words)

Explanation / Answer

Hypothesis is defined as 'a conjectural statement that talks about the relationship between two or more variables even before the conduction of research'. In the research by Dr. Cole, the hypothesis that can be stated is as follows-

'There will be significant positive relationship between stress and frequency of falling sick.'

Dr. Cole did not conduct an expermintal research. The research design undertaken in the present study is ex-post facto research with correlational oreintation. In ex-post facto research data is collected after the event has occurred. In the study she did not manipulate the independent variable and has not seen how it effects the dependent variable, which is the characteristic feature of expeimental design. Dr. Cole did not manipualte the level of stress. She has just assessed the varable and the level of stress.

The two variables of the study are- level of Stress and physical illness.

Operational definition means that how the variables of any given study will be assessed. The operational definition is different from conceptual definition of any variable. In the present study the variables- stress and illness have been studied in terms of severity and frequency of falling sick, respectively.

The four weaknesses of the study are as follows-

1. The data has been taken on 250 respondents. The data of only first 100 respondents was analyzed- Why??

2. The data for stress has been taken for the last six months. The data thus taken is more recounted and retrieved from memory, which has its own limitations.

3. Each time an individual falls sick and visits the doctor, the cause of the illness cannot be attributed to stress.

4. The data is thus not valid.

Any research is considered effective and reliable if is objective and rational in approach. Though the study of Dr. Cole is relaible and valid, yet the data is not reliable. This hinders the external validity of the research.

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