discussion post 330

Please provide 150-word comments for each of the posts below:

Post 1:

Informal observation

Hypothesis: Individuals who have a coffee shop in their business building will consume more café beverages than individuals who do not have a coffee shop in their business building.

Variables: The two groups are the individuals with a coffee shop, and the other is the individuals without the coffee shop at their business. The second variable would be the number of café beverages between the two groups.

Methods: Observe the individuals from a sample size of 40 individuals who have a coffee shop and count how many café beverages they consume versus a sample size of 40 individuals who do not have a coffee shop in their business and count how many people consume café beverages.

A practical problem

Problem: I would research how many hours men sleep versus women.

Variables: I would take a population of working adults and question a sample size of 50 men and 50 women.

Method: I would provide an electronic sleeping application (app) that monitors sleep to each individual to find out how many hours each person from the group slept over a weeks time. After that, I would construct a statistical graph from a paired-samples test to compare the men to women’s sleep time.

Recent Issues:

A recent article that I chose to research is from the February 2017 Journal of Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, titled “Daily associations between PTSD, drinking, and self-appraised alcohol-related problems.” The article discusses alcohol dependence (AD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how they are highly comorbid. “The researchers investigated how severe PTSD is associated with the less possible relationship between drinking quantities and percieved alcohol-related problems”(2017). The hypothesis: The association between daily drinking and same-day alcohol-related problems varies as a function of within-person PTSD (same-day symptoms) and between-person PTSD (overall severity). The methods they used were to take a sample size of 86 participants with age averaging 44.7 years old (SD=11.0), and ages ranged from 21 to 63. The variables used in the study were gender, veteran status, ethnicity, and baseline PTSD severity. The method the researchers use is called multilevel modeling (MLM); also, data was collected longitudinally over a period of several monitoring days resulting in a cross-sectional study.

Comment:

Post 2:

1. Informal Observation

Hypothesis: In regards to “terrible twos syndrome” who suffers from it worse, boys or girls?

Variables: Health factors: teething, sleep,nutrition, recently sick?. Social factors: family influence, etc. Environmental factors: does the child attend a daycare? Stays mostly at home? How does the child behave alone? Amongst other children? Around adults?

Possible Methods: Observe both boys and girls alone in a controlled environment, slowly add a factor that may take the child out of their comfort zone such as (another child of the same gender,opposite gender, older child, adult), decide what may be considered terrible two behavior.

2. Practical Problem

Question: To what degree does lack of sleep affect the attention span of teenagers?

Variables: A large group between the ages of 14-18.

Methods: Put teenagers in a controlled environment where they will be kept awake for 24-36 hours. Then place them in a classroom, where they will be taught a school subject and observed as to how much attention they can put on the subject matter before they began to lose interest. Test them after to see how much of the subject they can recall.

3. Recent Event from Behavior and Brain Sciences

Hypothesis: Behavioral and Brain Activity Indices of Cognitive Control Deficits in Binge Drinkers

Variables: 31 healthy, right-handed young adults (18 female, age 24.7 ± 3.9) participated in the study. They have no history of seizures,traumatic brain injury or concussions, no neurological or neuropsychiatric disorders,vision or hearing problems, and they all complied with MRI safety criteria. Participants were medication-free, they reported using no drugs or tobacco products for at least one month prior to the study and none had previously sought or been enrolled in alcohol abuse treatment.

Methods: Based on the screening information on alcohol consumption rate,frequency and pattern, participants were assigned to heavy episodic drinking group (HED, n=14) if they reported engaging in ≥5 binge episodes in the previous six months. Light episodic drinking (LED) group comprised individuals who had ≤2 binge episodes in that interval. A binge episode was defined as consuming 5+/6+ drinks for women/men within a two-hour time frame based on research evidence indicating that it is likely to reach a legal level of intoxication (0.08%[[77]].

Comment: