http://ryan1392.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/should-the-experimenter-stay-in-the-room/#comment-75
http://secretdiaryofapsychstudent.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/the-case-study-method/#comment-49
POPPS – Good or Bad?!
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said “At a funeral, the average person would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.” Believe it or not this is actually true; the fear of public speaking (glossophobia) tops the list of phobias in various surveys conducted around the world even topping the fear of death. Glossophobia is a subset of social phobia; people do not exhibit fears of meeting new people or performing tasks in front of people. In fact many people with glossophobia maybe able to dance or sing on stage, providing they do not have to talk. Glossophobia generally includes high levels of unexplainable anxiety at the thought of communicating to a group of people; for instance a dry mouth, faster heart beat, sweating and stiffening of muscles.
With this in mind I wanted to discuss whether POPPS is good tool for everyone. We all know what POPPS is; it is there to polish our public speaking skills through repetition and constructive criticism from fellow members. With 60% of people getting turned down for a jobs because they do not have well enough communication skills some would say it is essential. When I first started my psychology degree and was told I would have to do speeches in order to gain a percentage of my course I was not thrilled. I myself throughout school was not confident speaking in front of people. I often got shaking hands, tense muscles and a dry mouth which never seemed to improve speech to speech.
In my first POPPS class, I did not give a speech and watched other people who just seemed naturally confident, hence going first. One person I will always remember said ‘I do not get why people get so nervous’. This got me thinking is it fair that these people that are confident are getting 15% of the module for nothing, yes their doing a speech but it does not affect them, it’s an easy mark. Whereas others may miss a night of sleep due to nerves, feel sick, shaky and tense; and when they’ve finished the speech get told to give more eye contact which is not a confidence booster at all. I know everyone must experience a few nerves but not to the extremes of some.
The question is why people are getting so nervous and is POPPS addressing these issues. Firstly the fear of the unknown, the audience being the unknown; people often wonder what do they expect of me? Do they know more about the subject than I do? Secondly there is fear of forgetting, for instance the fear of the mind going blank and lastly the fear of unanticipated questions, not knowing the answer to a questions that are asked. I believe POPPS does address these issues; we are given speech topics, people know what to expect and we are able to prepare. Also we are often told to use power points or use notes, these act as prompts and the fear of forgetting is reduced. Lastly impromptu speeches work on unanticipated questions in a way; we are given a random topic and have to talk about it.
Now coming to the end of my second year do I think POPPS is good or bad? I think good. Doing my prepared speech last week I noticed a difference to my first year. I am much more confident, I still get nervous but not half as much as I used too and I suppose I have POPPS to thank. Here are a few facts and figures:
– Proper presentation and rehearsal of your message can reduce your fear by about 75%
– Utilizing breathing techniques can reduce your anxiety by another 15%.
– Preparing for your mental state can reduce your fear the remaining 10%.
Regarding my view point now, I know I’d defiantly rather be giving the eulogy than lying in the casket.
Happy Easter Everyone 🙂
References
http://www.no-fear-public-speaking.com/fearofpublicspeakingstatistics.html
http://www.thefearofpublicspeaking.com/fear-of-public-speaking-statistics.html
Comments – Week 7/8
http://raw2392.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/should-animals-be-used-in-research-110312/#comment-60
https://cerijayne.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/why-is-the-file-drawer-problem-a-problem/#comment-55
http://ruthtanti.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/sem-2-4-effects-of-tv-on-children/#comment-72
http://prpljr.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/sona-have-we-seen-and-done-it-all-too-much/#comment-55
http://stefftevs.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/popps-impromptu-speaking/#comment-45
Why is the “file drawer problem” a problem?
Suppose one day I decided to conduct a study comparing two groups of people; one group being dyslexic and the other a control group. My hypothesis predicts a difference in visual perception; however I find no difference. Should I report my results or not, is their further studies I could conduct or should I use more participants in order to find an effect. Realistically if I were to publish my results I am saying ‘I have an interesting theory that could explain visual perception but it is wrong’. These factors lead me into ‘filing’ my research away in order to avoid publication of it. This is known as the ‘file drawer problem’ coined by Rosenthal (1979), it is described as the bias introduced into scientific literature by selective publication. Meaning that researches have the tendency to publish positive results but not negative/null results; when in fact we should accentuate the negative.
This leads me to ask why the file draw problem is an actual problem. Firstly in relation to statistics we have a meta analyses which combines several studies who have related hypotheses, however it can only be done on published studies; therefore what about all the studies that have not been published. The file drawer problem results in the distribution of effect sizes being biased or skewed resulting in base rate fallacy, where significance of the actual published studies is overestimated. In the case of Meta analysis or any general study this over estimation can lead to inappropriate interventions and practices being put in place that may not even work. Furthermore the file drawer problem leads to distortion of literature which creates an impression that positive results are far more robust than they actually are. Another reason behind this being a problem is time wasting. This is particularly important within the medical profession; recently an early intervention study by Green at al(2010) published null results in a study related to autism. By doing this others know to avoid wasting scarce resources on things that are not effective. It essentially stops others from trying to establish an effect that is just not there and this in turn does waste time.
Furthermore it is important to understand why not reporting a null finding is not so good and why reporting one is. Firstly ‘The Food and Drug Administration and medical journals’ have claimed that for over a decade they have worried that clinical trials showing no benefits have been filed away rather than published; leading to trails being conducted again. In contrast to this research conducted in the University of Cadiz (UCA) reported null findings that professional preference is not linked to personality. When I first read this I initially thought why is this so important but it is. Many universities and colleges use personality measures to guide students down a career path but this study has allowed us to question is this the route we should be using.
From this information I conclude that we should not publish any old thing but if it has a good case, a strong introduction and methods then despite whether it confirms your hypothesis or not it should be published, as everything confirmed or not gives us knowledge. Also recently it is easier to publish null findings due to electronic journals so there is no excuse. Therefore if you have a null finding hiding in your filing draw get it out and publish it.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/f-sf-cau030310.php
Comments weeks 4/5
Should children be used in psychological research?
We all know some of the most interesting psychological studies have been results of experiments whose participants were children. I myself find them particularly interesting at my age now, as it allows me to look back and think was I like that, what would I have done in those situations, do I recognise myself having gone through certain stages as I was developing. However despite my interest I often look back and think should that study really have been conducted. Therefore I ask the question should children be used in psychological research at all.
I will begin by looking at some studies; despite all studies being valuable and allowing us to gain a deeper understanding of a child’s mind and behaviour, some studies will be seen as good and others bad. Firstly I shall discuss studies regarded as ethically sound and therefore good; firstly a study by Baron-Cohen (1985), wanted to find out if children, particularly autistic children have a theory of mind through the use of the Sally-Anne test (the test is highlighted below in the picture), in order to get the correct answer, the child has to be able to put itself in the shoes of Sally and answer the question ‘where is the ball?’ As Sally does not know her ball has been moved the correct answer would be her basket. However autistic children tended to say the box, as this where the ball actually is. This study gave us a deeper understanding of an autistic child and they have the inability to think about their own or other people’s thoughts. Furthermore there is the study by Samuel & Bryant (1984), where children were tested on the principle of conservation, with a focus on asking one question. Children were shown two beakers of water, one tall and thin, the other short and fat and the children were asked which beaker contained more water. The older the child the better at conservation, also seeing the transformation and being asked one question had an effect on the given answer.
From these studies I would say there is no problem testing children, the children were not put under any stress, they took part in quite simple tasks which may have been similar to something they would do in school and no physical or psychological harm was posed upon them.
However (and that is a big however) what about studies that I view and surely most of you view, as bad and unethical. One popular study is that of little Albert conducted by John Watson (1920), where Albert was exposed to a rat of which he held no fear of at all. Watson then began making loud noises by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer, which Albert naturally reacted to by crying, obviously in distress. After repeatedly pairing the rat with the loud noise, Albert simply began to cry when seeing the rat. Surely we should no develop a new fear within child which might affect them throughout life. Another study is that by Tudor (1939) named as the monster study (speaks for itself). 22 orphan children were the participants, Tudor gave positive speech therapy to half of them and negative speech therapy to the other half, this included belittling for every single imperfection of speech. Many of the normal speaking orphans receiving negative therapy suffered negative psychological effects and retained speech problems for most of their life.
After looking at these studies, my view point completely changes; no physical or psychological harm should ever come upon a child, even an adult in fact. The fact that the monster study was hidden by the experimenter due to fears of reputation being tarnished speaks volumes. With regards to the Little Albert study, clear distress was shown and Albert was exposed to a fear he once never had.
Therefore to conclude I believe that yes children should be used when conducting psychological research, however a thin line should be drawn to when they should be used. If consent is gained, no psychical or psychological harm is to happen and the psychologist recognises the caution required when working with children then I think it is ok to conduct the study. Most importantly it is important that the child is willing and that if any signs of distress are shown the experiment should immediately be stopped. Children are so influential and therefore precautions need to be taken.
References
Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A.M., & Frith, U. (1985) Does the autistic child have a ‘theory of mind’? Cognition, 21, 37-46
Samuel, J. & Bryant, P. (1984) Asking only one question in the conservation experiment. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 25, 315-18.
Semester 2, Week 2/3 Comments.
http://psych31.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/should-psychology-be-written-for-the-layman-or-should-science-be-exclusively-for-scientists/ – It says this comment is awaiting moderation, so I have copied and pasted it below.
I am not sure if I agree completely with your view point, yes psychology holds interest to most people due to its vast amount of topics where people can gain more understanding about themselves for instance about stress management or child-rearing. Therefore for these purposes some more real word papers preferably should be written for the layman on topics such as the above.
However above you mentioned neuropsychology in regards to this; in my eyes it is impossible to write and make information understandable just for the purpose of the layman. If I look back to year 1 before we began brain and mind, or psychobiology. If I were to read a neuropsychology paper, it often went over my head and I did not understand what it meant, words such as paralimbic cortex meant nothing to me but neuropsychologists have to use these words; they cannot dumb down their paper simply for the layman.
Therefore I believe psychology should be reported in scientific language, those that want to understand it should go out there and do so, just like we all did 🙂
http://raw2392.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/week-11-blog/#comment-45
http://leilla92.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/how-does-statistics-influence-our-lives/#comment-66
http://raw2392.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/blog-for-050212/
Between-Subject Design Vs Within-Subject Design
To begin this semester blogs, I thought I would discuss the two basic research designs concerned with psychological research, those being between-subject designs and within- subject designs. Within this blog I am going to disregard the fact that the majority of the time we choose a design based on our hypothesis. I am going to look more into the pros and cons of both and decide despite my research hypothesis, which one in general appears to be the better design, resulting in more valid findings.
Firstly I shall discuss between-subjects designs; this is where different groups of individuals are compared. Therefore the researcher manipulates the independent variable, which creates different treatment conditions; separate groups of participants are then assigned to each of these different conditions. The dependent variable is then measured for each individual and differences are looked for between-groups. When given the basic description of a between-groups design, my initial thought is the scores are independent of each other and therefore I can be confident that they are clean results and have not be affected by practice effects, or fatigue, boredom or contrast effects. However in the past when thinking about conducting a between-groups experiment, I realise a lot more participants will be need than if I were to conduct a within-subjects design. As each participant is only giving one piece of data, if I were to conduct a study with 3 conditions needing 20 participants in each one, I would need 60 participants whereas within groups I would only need 20. This may prove an issue in situations where a population is hard to get hold of. Despite the advantages of different individuals being used in conditions, this is also a primary disadvantage, as it leaves the research open to the problem of individual differences. For instance if I were to conduct a study with my friend and boyfriend both participating, they differ in age, IQ, personality, interests but also the day before my experiment my friend may have had a sleepless night whereas my boyfriend slept soundly. Within my research the major concern for me would be these individual differences turning into confounding variables, basically is my finding actually because of the treatment or because of a confounding variable such as age. Sometimes we can just not tell.
Before choosing my winner, I shall discuss within- subjects designs, this is where a single group of participants are tested or observed in all of the different treatments being compared. Therefore the same group of individuals participate in all different levels of the independent variable. Again when given the basic description of within- groups design, my first thought is this is the complete opposite to between subjects in regards to confounding variables, at the very least they will be reduced. There are no individual differences to confound the results; the individuals in treatment 1 are exactly the same as treatment 2. You can more than likely conclude differences are due to the treatment rather than individual differences. Furthermore if individual differences are consistent across treatments, they can be measured and removed from the rest of the variance of the data. Despite its advantages, one major setback of within-subjects is that participants go through different treatments each administered at a different time, therefore time-related factors may come into play, such as fatigue and weather; also issues such as history, maturation, instrumentation, testing effects and regression hold disadvantages. Lastly such design is subject to participant attrition, where participants may simply just drop out, losing you valuable data.
After discussing both designs it is clear that both hold advantages and disadvantages, and it is apparent that the advantages of one design are essentially the same as the disadvantages for the other design. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that no design is better in general than the other in regards to validity; as when each design is faced with its disadvantages, each disadvantage is offered a solution. For instance between-groups main disadvantage is individual differences, this can be improved by establishing equivalent groups by random assignment or matching, also variance can be minimized by standardizing procedures and keeping the treatment setting stable. Lastly within-groups main disadvantage is order effects, dealing with such problem can be done through counterbalancing the conditions. No winner here guys 🙂
Week 11/12 Comments
http://psych31.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/qualatative-research-easy-or-harder-than-it-looks/#comment-40 – Comment needs moderation so posted below as well …
I agree with you that qualitative data is much more work than people think is involved, however it does have its disadvantages. For instance researchers only usually have a rough idea of what they are looking for whereas with quantitative a researcher knows clearly in advance what they want to find out. Therefore if your stepping into a research project not actually knowing what you are looking for, experimenter bias can be a huge issue in qualitative, they may take the results they want even if they are not the most important. Whereas with quantitative you can’t change the statistics. Again with the design, within qualitative it unfolds as the research progresses where as in quantitative it is set in stone, you know what you are doing. By now I think you can guess I am a quantitative person 
! Just to me qualitative seems a bit to time consuming and wishy washy! Despite that it does give you a great in depth look into something if that is what you want.
http://lmr92.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/what-makes-a-research-finding-important/#comment-28
Happy Christmas Everyone 😀
How do you know whether you findings are valid?
Validity, one of the most well known concepts within psychology, it is known as the ‘extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure’. Psychological research without validity is like Romeo without Juliet, it just would not work. For research to be valid the body of the research should demonstrate a relationship between what is being tested and the intended measure, we cannot determine validity by a single statistic.
The question is how do we know if our findings are actually valid? For upmost validity, researchers should be concerned with internal and external validity and there probable consequences within research. Firstly I shall discuss internal validity, the question a researcher poses here is can we confidently place a cause and effect relationship in a study, are there any alternative causes that could intentionally explain the effect. Meaning in order for research findings to be classed as internally valid then we must be sure that the independent variable caused a change in the dependent variable.
So what are the threats to internal validity? To begin there is the matter of confounding variables, otherwise known as the extraneous variables of which usually correlate with the independent and dependent variable. For example take the murder and ice cream classic, apparently murder rates and ice cream sales highly correlate, so in other words as murder ratse rise so does the sales of ice cream. It is hard to imagine that one causes the other; we could say that murder causes people to buy ice cream or vise versa ice cream causes people to murder. BUT actually there could be a confounding variable in play, which causes them both to rise such as the weather. Furthermore as a result of confounding variables, the results of the research may be analysed incorrectly and from doing so the research loses validity.
Further threats to internal validity include the setting of the research, where is it being conducted? If research is conducted within a laboratory setting, then confounding variables are much easier to eliminate, resulting in much higher internal validity whereas in contrast field experiments, where people are observed in the real world, the opportunity to do this is not available.
So I have discussed internal validity now to move onto external validity. External validity is how well we can generalize our findings to other people and situations. What researchers need think about here is can the sample collected from a laboratory experiment really represent the whole population? For instance if were to conduct a study on motivation in men could we generalize this to women also. Other threats may be the time the research was carried out, would a different time and date have produced completely different results.
I have now talked about both the two main types of validity, the question is we as researchers want to ask is can we increase either internal or external validity in some way? Yes we can, firstly for internal validity – researchers must keep the number of confounding variables as low as possible and randomly assign participants to groups so there is a large spread of characteristics. Secondly for external validity, the use of appropriate sample is important; researchers need to ensure that their sample is representative of the population as a whole. Also study replication may be an important factor here.
To conclude I have discussed the two main concerns when it comes to validity. In order to know whether your findings are valid, these need to be focused upon. If you have no confounding variables, and a representative sample then you pretty much have a decently valid study :D.
cerijayne 