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Houston Community College Scientific Hypothesis and Methodology Responses

 

  1. State one of the basic designs mentioned in Chapter 8 (descriptive, correlational, predictive correlational, experimental, or quasi-experimental) and describe a possible study that could be done using that design.
    • Correlation designs are typically used to “examine relationships between or among two or more variables in a single group in a study.” There 3 main purposes to a correlational design study – to describe the relationships between and/or among variables, to predict relationships between and/or among variables, and to test theoretically proposed relationships. An example of a study that could be done using this correlation design would be to see if the amount of time a person spend running or walking on the treadmill will affect how much or more calories the person can burn in a single workout.
    • What are the strengths and weaknesses of that design? Be sure to cite the source of your information.One of the main strengths of a correlational study design is that it can show a concrete positive or negative trend (depending on the directions of the plot/graph) between two different variables. However, one of the weakness’ of a correlational study design is that it may or may not define the cause or effect between the variables (and clearly at that).
    • There are numerous research designs one may utilize to produce the most viable study. One such design is known as the correlational design where relationships are examined between variables. According to Understanding Nursing Research, a researcher would make use of a correlational study to determine if there is a relationship among the variables and an algorithm may be utilized to differentiate between a descriptive versus a predictive correlational study (Grove & Gray, 2019, p. 207). A possible study could entail a nursing researcher looking to determine a relationship between drinking coffee and the development of heartburn. This study would be a challenge because although there could be a direct correlation between the two, it may prove difficult to predict a direct causal relationship as there could be other factors including stress and anatomical reasons that could very well cause or contribute to the development of heartburn. Furthermore, time is a factor that may provide challenges as some people may experience acute episodes of heartburn while others may require a longer period of time to assess for this. Many issues may arise during the study including health changes in participants along with an increase in age etc, therefore, control may prove to be difficult. A positive aspect is that if in case a strong correlation could be made between drinking coffee and developing heartburn, it may serve as a pivotal factor in patient education, treatment, and even aid the anticoffee movement! Furthermore, some items may be adjusted to help eliminate some of the challenges like studying the acute effects of coffee in the development of heartburn versus long-term.