Breaking Down Research Designs

After a less-than-stellar set of test grades on chapters 7 and 8, I decided to re-explain the characteristics of research design. The test question was:

What is a design? What are its components?

In chapter 2, we state (p. 44): "The design of a research project includes the number of groups, how they are treated, and how the behavior is measured. The dependent variable, the independent variable, levels of the independent variable, and how extraneous variables are controlled are all aspects of research design."

In chapter 7, we introduce between-subjects designs and the extraneous variables of selection, differential attrition, and diffusion of treatment. In chapter 8, we introduce within-subjects designs and the extraneous variables of testing, instrument change, history, maturation, and regression (to the mean).

Let's break down design even further.

RESEARCH Type

• Experiment
• Quasi-experiment
• Field Study
• Naturalistic Observation
• Participant Observation
• Case Study
• Interview
• Focus Group
• Oral History
• Archival Study
• Small N Study
• Other
  

NUMBER of Groups (N)

• One
• Two
• Three
• Four
• More

GROUPS

• Between Subjects
• Within Subjects
• Mixed

VARIABLES

• Independent (number, levels)
• Dependent (number, quantitative or qualitative, continuous or discrete)
• Extraneous (how controlled or not)

EXPLORATORY DATA ANALYSIS & STATISTICS

• Graphs
• Descriptive Statistics
• Correlations
  
• Confidence Intervals
• NHST Tests and Significance (e.g., t-test, ANOVA, chi-square)
  
• Nonparametric Tests (e.g., Mann-Whitney, Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed Ranks, Spearman correlation coefficient)
  
• Effect Sizes

CONTROLLING EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES

• Via design
• Via procedures

ETHICS

As we note in chapter 3, any design that fails to properly follow the current ethical standards is, by definition, a bad design.

So, there are many aspects to research design. Careful researchers devote much time toward perfecting their design and then pilot testing it before collecting data for real.

Animal Research: Then and Now

You may have noticed that we say very little about animal research in our text. That is strange because we both come from animal research backgrounds. Much has changed in animal research over the course of our careers. There is much less animal research going on in psychology than there was 40 years ago.

There are several reasons why animal research is less common now. The most obvious, perhaps, is the rise of the animal rights community, notably PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and similar groups. I attended the 1990 APA convention where PETA exhibited a float outside of the Washington Hilton Hotel depicting the horrors of animal research. At that same meeting, demonstrators disrupted presentations, including one by Neil Miller at which I was in the audience.

Another reason for the decline of animal research in psychology is money and still another is more outside regulation. The price of animals has risen as has the price of housing and caring for them. In addition, new regulations (which we cover in chapter 3) have made it more difficult to maintain existing animal facilities and nearly impossible to start new ones.

Sally Boysen's chimpanzee research is an apt example. (See this link to Scientific American Frontiers for more information.) Her research, valuable as it was, ended up a victim to costs, regulations, and more. Her university closed down the lab and sent the animals to Texas. Boysen chained herself to the door of the lab before the move, but that action, dramatic as it was, changed nothing. Here is a news story about the closing of her lab.

The impetus for this post, however, is an upcoming book: The Animal Research War by P. Michael Conn and James V. Parker, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in May 2008. Here is a link to the publisher's page about that book. Here is an link to an excerpt, you may have to register (for free) before being allowed to read it. If you are interested in animal research, I recommend the excerpt highly.

All things change, including psychology. Animal behavioral research is still valuable, I think. Certainly, the assault from PETA and others forced changes too. Some of those changes were probably needed. For instance, undergraduates taking physiological psychology courses probably don't need to sacrifice and dissect a rat's brain in order to learn how brains work. Obviously, graduate students in physiological psychology do need to learn such techniques. The winds of change blow and we usually don't know what kinds of changes they will bring. Less animal research in psychology was one of them however.

Ethics Course Topics

C. Neal Stewart and J. Lannett Edwards recently taught a graduate level ethics course, Research Ethics for the Life Sciences. See The Scientist for a longer account account and for more detail on their course. See this link for a copy of their syllabus.

I thought their list of topics was instructive:

• plagiarism
• authorship
• grantsmanship*
• peer review
• research misconduct
• image fraud
• whistle-blowing*
• conflicts of interest
• patenting*
• women in science* (as a special topic)

* designates topics we do not cover in our book

Their recommendations for teaching such a course also bear attention:

• Team teach
• Use case studies
• Use practical examples
• Keep it light
• Keep class size small
• Focus on ethics not morality

On page 72, we distinguish between ethics and morality in an In the Know box. We use the American Heritage Dictionary of the American Language as a source and say, "Morality relates to personal and sexual behavior according to societal strictures. Ethics, on the other hand, is derived from philosophy and attempts to provide objective and idealistic standards for human conduct."

Low blood sugar is deadly?

A portion of an ongoing diabetes study was recently halted when one of the groups experienced 54 more deaths than another. The group with the higher number of deaths was composed of diabetes patients who were asked to radically lower their blood sugar levels. The comparison group was also lowering their blood sugar levels, but not as much.

Nothing in the previous literature suggested that lowering blood sugar could be dangerous for diabetics, provided they did not do so abruptly.

Thus, the researchers deemed it necessary, on ethical grounds, to halt the part of the study where patients were attempting to lower their blood sugar levels to near the levels of a normal, non-diabetic person.

Read the New York Times article for more information. This study shows the necessity of monitoring data collection and making adjustments to protocols as necessary.

Torture

Before 9/11 I used to mention torture off-handedly in my learning class as an example of sensitization . Of course, I never dreamed back then that any psychologists would actually use torture. Like many, I thought that the Nuremberg Trials had shut the door firmly on those who would use the scientific method for less than benign ends. Apparently, I was wrong. I no longer mention torture in class.

Yesterday, the American Psychological Association took an important step when its council voted to affirm an "absolute prohibition against psychologists' knowingly planning, designing, and assisting in the use of torture and any form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment."

More specifically, the council named prohibited actions: "includes all techniques defined as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the 2006 Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and the Geneva Convention. This unequivocal condemnation includes, but is by no means limited to, an absolute prohibition for psychologists against direct or indirect participation in interrogations or in any other detainee-related operations in mock executions, water-boarding or any other form of simulated drowning or suffocation, sexual humiliation, rape, cultural or religious humiliation, exploitation of phobias or psychopathology, induced hypothermia, the use of psychotropic drugs or mind-altering substances used for the purpose of eliciting information; as well as the following used for the purposes of eliciting information in an interrogation process: hooding, forced nakedness, stress positions, the use of dogs to threaten or intimidate, physical assault including slapping or shaking, exposure to extreme heat or cold, threats of harm or death; and isolation, sensory deprivation and over-stimulation and/or sleep deprivation used in a manner that represents significant pain or suffering or in a manner that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm; or the threatened use of any of the above techniques to the individual or to members of the individual’s family;"

The American Psychological Association's action follows similar positions by the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association. Yesterday's statement by the American Psychological Association was a compromise from another stronger position which sought to ban psychologists' participation from all interrogations. The council rejected that earlier proposal.

The Psychologists for Social Responsibility recently sponsored a symposium: Rethinking the Psychology of Torture. One of their conclusions was that, "Torture does not yield reliable information and is actually counterproductive in intelligence interrogations."

At least we now have some operational definitions of what not to do (or teach) with regard to torture.

Faked Data: Interviews and Urine Samples

A research associate at UCLA falsified 20 interviews and their associated urine samples recently. In addition, he also pocketed $5,180 in project funds.

His punishment? The Office of Research Integrity has banned him for three years. He may not work on or serve on federal grants during that period.

To see a online article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, click here.

Obviously, this story is a case of scientific misconduct. Let it serve as a counterexample for you and your research.

Zimbardo on Evil

Dr. Phillip Zimbardo has a new book out, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. In a review in the New York Times, he discusses his famous prison experiment and compares it to Milgram's earlier obedience research.

In that review he states, "In a lot of ways, the studies (his prison study and Milgram's obedience study) are bookends in our understanding of evil."

We agree. Chapter 3 of our text capitalizes on his book end metaphor nicely, we think.