Internal and External Validity

Internal Validity
Control over research condition is necessary to enable researchers to rule out plausible but incorrect explanations of results. There are several sources in internal validity. There are:-
- History
- Maturation
- Testing
- Instrumentation
- Statistical regression
- Experimental mortality
- Sample selection
- Demand characteristic
- Experimenter bias
- Evaluation apprehension
- Causal time order
- Diffusion or initiation of treatments
- Compensation
- Compensatory rivalry
- Demoralization

External Validity
Refers to how well the results of a study can be generalized across populations, settings, and time. The external validity of a study can be severely affected by the interaction in an analysis of variables such as subject selection, instrumentation, and experimental condition. Most procedures use to guard against external invalidity relate to sample selection. Cook and Campbell (1979) make three suggestions:
- Use random samples
- Use heterogeneous samples and replicate (repeat) the study several times
- Select a sample that is representative of the group to which the results will be generalised.


TUTORIAL ANSWERS.
QUESTION 1

Topic 1
To investigate students who browse the internet frequently are more exposed to the current news of the globe.

Internal Validity
Cause = frequency level
Effect = the amount of news collected less or more

Topic 2
To investigate the communication skills of youth nowadays among friends or family that were influence by the current media such as social network.

Cause = influence by the media (social network)
Effect = communication skills of youth nowadays among friends or family.


QUESTION 2

i) Prime time TV programmes are the most programs people likely to watch at the news in Malaysian TV3 from 8pm - 9pm. Usually programmes during the prime time are domestic drama, foreign drama series, movies and entertainment programmes.


ii) Students attitude in lectures tend to lost interest in focusing due to the boring conduct of lecture.
Student are easily distracted by their gadgets such as iPod, iPad, handphones, and laptops. 80% of student tend to concentrate to the lecture if it include element of humor in it.

iii) Addicted smart phone users tend to be more addicted  when 90% of their time in a day they spend it with their phone. By having more apps will span more attention towards their smart phones.



Written by: Faza Maisarah

Internal and External Validity.

Internal validity

According to Wimmer & Dominick (2011),
- control over research conditions is necessary to enable researchers to rule out plausible but incorrect explanations of results.

- Any such variable that creates a possible but incorrect explanation of results is called an artifact (also referred to as a confounding variable). The presence of an artifact indicates a lack of internal validity; that is, the study has failed to investigate its hypothesis.

- Example :-

• Suppose that researchers discover through a study that children who view television for extended periods have lower grade point averages in school than children who watch only a limited amount of television. Could an artifact have created this finding?
• It may be that children who view fewer hours of television also receive parental help with their school work; parental help (the artifact), not hours of television viewed, may be the reason for the difference in grade point averages between the two groups.

- Artifacts in research may arise from several sources. Those most frequently encountered are described next. Researches should be familiar with these sources to achieve internal validity in the experiments they conduct (Campbell & Stanley, 1963; Cook & Campbell, 1979).

• History - various events that occur during a study may affect the subjects' attitudes, opinions, and behavior.

• Maturation - subjects' biological and psychological characteristics change during the course of a study. Growing hungry or tired, or becoming older may influence how subjects respond in a research study.

• Testing - testing itself may be an artifact, particularly when subjects are given similar pretests and posttests. A pretest may sensitize subjects to the material and improve their posttest scores regardless of the type of experimental treatment given to them.

• Instrumentation - also known as instrument decay, this term refers to the deterioration of research instruments or methods over the course of a study. Equipment may wear out, observers may become more casual in recording their observations, and interviewers who memorize frequently asked questions might fail to present them in the proper order.

• Statistical regression - subjects who achieve either very high or very low scores on a test tend to regress to (move toward) the sample or population mean during subsequent testing sessions. Often outliers (subjects whose pretest scores are far from the mean) are selected for further testing or evaluation.

• Experimental mortality - all research studies face the possibility that subjects will drop out for one reason or another. Especially in long-term studies, subjects may refuse to continue with the project, become ill, move away, drop out of school, or quit work. This mortality, or loss of subjects is sure to have an effect on the results of a study because most research methods and statistical analyses make assumptions about the number of subjects used.

• Sample selection - most research designs compare two or more groups of subjects to determine whether differences exist on the dependent measurement. These groups must be selected randomly and tested for homogeneity to ensure that results are not due to the type of sample used.

• Demand characteristics - is used to describe subjects' reactions to experimental situations. According to Orne (1969), he suggests that under some circumstances subjects' awareness of the experimental purpose may be the sole determinant of how they behave; that is, subjects who recognize the purpose of a study may produce only "good" data for researches.

• Experimenter bias - Rosenthal (1969) discusses a variety of ways in which a researcher may influence the results of a study Bias can enter through mistakes made in observation, data recording, mathematical computations, and interpretation. Whether experimenter errors are intentional or unintentional, they usually support the researcher's hypothesis and are biased (Walizer & Wienir, 1978).

• Evaluation apprehension - Concept of evaluation apprehension is similar to demand characteristics, but it emphasizes that subjects are essentially afraid of being measured or tested.

• Causal time order - the organization of an experiment may create problems with data collection and interpretation. It may be that an experiment's results are not due to the stimulus (independent) variable but rather to the effect of the dependent variable.

• Diffusion or imitation of treatments - in situations where respondents participate at different times during one day or over several days, or where groups of respondents are studied one after another, respondents are studied one after another, respondents may have the opportunity to discuss the project with someone from another session and contaminate the research project.

• Compensation - sometimes individuals who work with a control group (the one that receives no experimental treatment) may unknowingly treat the group differently because the group is "deprived" of some thing. In this case, the control group is no longer legitimate.

• Compensatory rivalry - occasionally, subjects who know they are in a control group may work harder or perform differently to outperform the experimental group.

• Demoralization - control group subjects may literally lose interest in a project because they are not experimental subjects. These people may give up or fail to perform normally because they may feel demoralized or angry that they are not in the experimental group.

Research to Explain Mass Media

Everything in this world can be researched. Research can only be done to the new and original theory, not the one that previously established. To accept or to know more about something better, we need concrete evidence to support it so that we do research. Research can be done not only on animals or religious, it can also be done in mass media. Research have two meanings, explain and applied. Which means, we research on something to explain something to know more about it. In other hand, applied means we use the result to make decision based on the result. The result should be able to use or in other word generalized. There are two major sector of research. Academic research and private research.

Academic research usually own by government As long its not a private company, its assume as academic research. This academic research is more likely research about basic or public. Means that they research something to explain it in more deep about something to public knowledge. Besides that, the result that they get can be obtain and share to public. Compare to private research that own by some private company such as Pepsi, F&N, Starbucks, they only research about how to upgrade or boost their quality in market. More easy to understand, they research for their own importance. Plus, the result from that research cannot be obtained because that is as their 'top secret'. They will share to public one day but not in immediate time. Maybe after 8-10 years after their 'recipe' succeed.

Furthermore, for academic researcher, they don't have specific deadline for their research but for private researcher they always have deadlines. This is because private company need to know their 'recipe' as soon as possible to make sure their company always make profit. They don't want their customer get the same thing and feel bored, so they need to know what their customer want and maintain their customer enjoy their product. As for mass media example, news company such as Star or Harian Metro always have an interesting news and catchy layout on their newspaper to attract people to buy their paper.

        Next, academic research cost for their research is lower compared to private research. This is because due to academic research expense is lower than private during the research. They don't need to cover the overhead cost. However, for private company, their expense more because they need to pay for everything including overhead cost. As an example, electricity bills, study materials, experimental materials, and other requirements needs they use their own money.

When it comes to research, the must have procedures we must follow. As for academic and private, they both need to follow the procedures that already set. They need to go through same process and methodology. Henceforth, they both finding out something new to research that can be explain and apply. 

Next, there are 8 steps of research that always being use:

1)Selecting and defining research

2)Determining topic relevance and significance

3)Review of literature

4)Stating a hypothesis or research questions

5)Preparing research instruments

6)Data collection

7)Data analysis and interpretation

8)Presenting result

Here i will describe a bit about all this 8 steps.

1)Selecting and defining research- the researcher will identified what are they going to research and get to know about their researching

2)Determining topic relevance and significance- decide or specify whether the topic is relevant to research and the interest  about the topic based from the people

3)Review of literature- Find an information or result from other researcher and study about it and to get know what haven't been research.

4)Stating a hypothesis or research questions- A formal statement regarding the relationship between variables and is tested directly.

5)Preparing research instrument- Prepare some methods for the researcher such as journal, interview questions, questionnaire, coding sheet and etc.

6)Data collection- Collection some data based on the result from the interview and coding

7)Data analysis and interpretation- Making sense of the data that have been recorded and make a meaningful interpretation. Make sure the data is accurate and fulfill all the requirement and have both internal and external validity.

8)Presenting result- Must be presented in a clear and understandable by people and also follow the format of the study. Also need project paper, theses or dissertation.

Written by: Asyraf (Ash)

~Human - Science - Research~

Tutorial Week 2

  

1)    In general, research includes gathering information, data and facts for getting more knowledge.
Reading a factual book of any sort is a kind of research. Surfing the internet or watching the news is also a type of research. By doing research, it should help us make the story clearer.

Scientific research basically means procedures. We perform  a methodical study in order to prove a hypotheses or answer a certain question. Finding the right and the truth answer is the goal of the investigation or experimental process. Scientific research must be organized and undergo planning, including performing literature reviews of past research and evaluating what questions need to be answered. By following procedures or methods, we can get concrete evidence to support our knowledge and people will trust our facts. It helps us to proven credibility in our research.

2)    There four main non scientific sources of knowledge.
i.    Agreement reality
-    Are the things you consider to be real because you are told they are real.
For examples :  - The existance of God   - Russia country has 11 different time zones   -Sun rises in east
ii.    Experimental reality
-    Are the things you know as a function of your direct experience.
       For examples : - Flying on the plane for more than 3 hours can give you a jet lag and back pain. –  Eating asparagus can make our urine smells  or eating beet root can turn our urine colour red.
iii.    Tradition source
-    Are when we accepting an inherited body of information and understanding.
Examples : - We receive money from adults during holiday celebrations. – In malay tradition, if you sit on a pillow, you will get blister on your bum!   -Or in chinese tradition, don't open an umbrella in the house because the ghost will come out from the umbrella!!
iv.    Authority source
-    Means it derives from the status of the transmitter of the knowledge.
Examples : - Driving school teachers will teach how to drive, not to teach about how to cook. - A parent consults a pediatrician concerning their children's cold.

3)    One of the foundation of social science inquiry states that social science researchers are interested in groups, aggregates or collections, but not in individuals.
-    Mass media researchers would be interested in doing research on old people who are aged over 50 years old in this century to investigate how many of them are using e-newspaper (reading newspaper online) and how many are they still prefer paperback newspaper.
     In conclusion, researchers are more interested in specific group because group are important in research process.

4)    Variables and attributes.
-    Scientific research is all about theory. Theory is an establishment between attributes (results) and variables.
Variables are logical groupings of attributes and attributes is the characteristics or qualities that describe an object. Thus, this relationship become a theory. A theory is a means for simplifying and understanding complex realities.

Examples of attributes for the following variables :

i.    Racial group  : Chinese,Malay,Hispanic,Caucasian
ii.    Education level : High school, Secondary school,Undergraduate,Postgraduate

iii.    Number of magazines a teenager buy in a month : Fashion magazine, Games magazine, Music magazine, four, six
iv.    Agreement/Attitude towards violence on TV : Like, Dislike, Agree, Disagree
v.    Types of Smartphones in the market today : Size, colour, android, touchscreen.

Last but not least, when we do research, we have make sure our research are measurable, observable and experience-able. Everything must be concrete, empirical and specific.

Written and posted by : Anah
Edited by: Asyraf