Research design and sampling techniques
Strange, C, Fisher, C, Howat, P & Wood L 2018, ‘“Easier to isolate yourself…there’s no need to leave the house”—A qualitative study on the paradoxes of online communication for parents with young children’, Computers in Human Behaviour, vol. 83. pp. 168–175
Question one
The research used a cross-sectional survey design. Schmidt & Kohlmann (2008, p. 168) suggests that this type of design is used to make inferences on a population of interest as a snapshot of the whole population within a given period of time. Setia (2016, p. 262) suggests that this study work well when the researcher is seeking to determining the frequency of particular attributes in a research thus allowing the researcher to estimate the prevalence of certain condition that they are seeking. For easy gathering of information, subjects are contacted at one point in time to obtain information from them. By measuring the exposure and outcome in the study at the same time the design makes it easy to collect data for the research.
Snow ball sampling: the first group of the respondents was recruited through emails, Facebook and parenting sites. This sampling technique allows the researcher to recruit respondents slowly into the study until the saturation limit is reached (Voicu 2011, p. 1345). The researcher used this sampling method because it uses the non-probability approach to pick respondents that the researcher is interested in until the right number has been achieved.
Simple random sampling: this sampling method was used for rest of the population who were picked from family events like parks and community centers. This method allows the researcher to pick choose the respondents randomly using any criteria without concentrating on the type pf respondents they have been picked (Meng 2013, p. 535). It gives all the participants a chance to participate in the study.
Question two
- “We like to use apps like WhatsApp, Facetime and Instagram so that our parents living abroad can keep in touch with their grandchild”, this reflects with the theme of staying in touch with family and friends. This is because online communication allows families to keep in touch with each other and connect with their loved ones.
- “I find it a good way of communicating with other mothers who are in the same boat as me.”
This coincides with the theme of staying in touch with family and friends. Through social media, people like mothers can interact with their peers to share information and issues that affect them. Tosun & Baris (2011, p. 532) suggests that through a single click, one can acess a wide range of information through internet search tools.
- “When I see other people sharing the perfect pictures and talking about their child sleeping through the night it makes me feel like a failure.” This reflects with the theme of Paradoxes – cautionary perspectives about online communication which makes people to feel like they are not up to the game when life behind with the use of technology (Strange, et al. 2018, p. 171). This is one of the downsides of technology since it can be used to create unwanted feelings or feelings that challenge the success of the family.
- “When my baby had a fever one night I looked up the info on a parenting website and that was a helpful guide on when to seek medical attention.” This coincides with the theme of access to information for use and advice. This allows parents to access online information that they can use in making decisions based on the situations that they are facing. Batinic (2013, p. 2) suggests that the internet plays an intergal role to the comeporary sociakty on access to information. This allows people to such the internet on anything that they want tio gather knowledge on and easily get the informationline.
Question three:
- Place of birth- Nominal scale
- Employment status- nominal scale
- Length of residence in current suburb- Ordinal scale
Question four: Interval scale
The interval scale aligns to the question since it is based on numeric values that are determined by the difference between the values. For example, the time of access can be daily, weekly, monthly or yearly or the researcher can use the number of times like once, twice, thrice and so on.
Role of social media in staying in touch with family and friends
Question five: Online communication is an excellent replacement for fade-to-face meetings between families
Online communication offers different platforms that people can use to connect with each other. The onsite of social media tools like Facebook, WhatsApp, twitter and other group communication tools like skype and conference calling have allowed people to communicate with each other in real time. Through video conferencing, people talk with each other thus replacing the need for face to face communication. Online communication provides cheaper communication options that allow people to engage with each other easily rather than travelling to one place. By seeing the face and body of the people you communicate to in online communication. This option is slowly replacing the fade-to-face meeting.
TASK B—Quantitative Research
Dunn, M, Thomas, JO, Swift, W & Burns, L 2011. ‘Recreational substance use among elite
Australian athletes’, Drug and Alcohol Review, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 63–68.
Question six
- Data collection methods
The researcher used the survey design and convenience sampling to organize the respondents for collecting data. Surveys contained questions relating to the study problem pertaining substance use.
- Three aims of the study
- To study the prevalence of illicit drugs in Australian elite athletes.
- To investigate the level of use of recreational drugs among athletes.
- To understand the opinion of athletes on the use and effects of drugs.
- To understand the factors that can be used to predict employee drug behaviour.
Question seven:
- The odd ratio of 2.8 indicates that in every the number of full-time athletes who participated in use of any type of drug is rated at 2.8 which is almost three times more than those who did not use any drug at all. This figure indicates that there is a higher use of drugs among full-time athletes.
- The confidence interval of (1.6, 4.9) indicates the reliability of the information and the possibility of the athletes using the drugs.
- The p-value of < 0.001 indicates that the probability of the behaviour occurring is low since it is rated at a rate of 1% which can be rated as no chance.
Question eight
- Variable that showed highest impact of illicit drug use
The variable of the group of athletes who had been offered illicit drugs or had an opportunity to use the drug in the past one year. Those odd ratio between those who had not tasted the drug and those who had tasted is 18.9 in favor of those who had tasted (Dunn, et al. 2011, p. 67).
The variable that showed
- P-value of the variable
The P value of the variable is <0.001
- Statistical significance of the value
The statistical significance of the variable is put at 1% which makes it less reliable. Nuzzo (2014, p. 150) suggests that the role of this value is to offer the statistical signifacnce of the variable. Since the value is not below statistical significance it means that it can be used in research.
Question nine
- The difference of the risks in the two variable is statistically significant since they share the same statistical significance value of <0.0001 thus making the probability of the risk to be true.
- Statistical significance reflects the risk of tolerance in research where the value achieved falls within the one set by the researcher is normally less than 5%. This clears the random choice value that can be created by a researcher to influence the research (Benjamin, et al. 2018, p. 7). This value is used to reject the null hypothesis thus allowing the study to be accepted.
Question ten
Dunn, et al. (2011, p. 67) suggested that the study was limited by the use of self-report for data collection which may not reflect the actual findings since the reports cannot be validated. This compromises the quality of the outcomes since they may be subjecetd to responded biases.
On the other hand, Dunn, et al. (2011, p. 67) adds that the use of convenience sampling limited the number of athletes in the study since the researcher did not focus on high profile athletes. This makes it impossible to generalise the findings across all athletes.
Question eleven
- Reardon, C. L. & Creado, S., 2014. Drug abuse in athletes. Substance Abuse and Rehabilitation, Volume 5, pp. 95-101.
- Reardon & Creado (2014, p. 102) suggests that the first interevention strategy is putting up prevention measures to ensure that it does not happen again. The best way is to develop an edcationla program like the didactic education to empower them with knowledge on how to prevent the use of drugs and at the same time making them understand tge effects of the drugs on their career. Sinnce Dunn, et al. (2011, p. 66) suggests that some athletes do not know the effects of the drug or are exposed by theor feloow athletes. Education can be use to increase prevention and ensure that they can achieve better prevention.
The other strategy that can be used to prevent use drugs is proper counselling of athletes. This ensures that they are mentally supported to develop new behaviours that do not need use of drugs. Most drugs are used to stay high without knowing the effects that they have. Reardon & Creado (2014, p. 102) adds that through counselling, athletes understand what is requied of them.
TASK C—HBS108 Careers Education
Question twelve
- Career of interest is counselling psychology
- A state license for counselling, psychology and wellbeing.
At least one year experience in the filed with practical field knowledge.
- The skills I have acquired in the unit are relevant to the job since it entails dealing with issues that affect the wellbeing of people. By learning to understand the problems that people face and developing care plans to help them achieve solutions. The skills I have acquired in the course are relevant to the job description above.
References
Batinic, I., 2013. The role and importance of the internet in contemporary tourism in travel agencies business. International Journal of Cognitive Research in science, engineering and education, 1(2), pp. 1-4.
Benjamin, D. J. et al., 2018. Redefine statistical significance. Nature Human Behaviour, Volume 2, pp. 6-10.
Dunn, M., JO, T., Swift, W. & Burns, L., 2011. Recreational substance use among elite Australian athletes. Drug and Alcohol Review, 30(1), pp. 63-68.
Meng, X., 2013. Scalable Simple Random Sampling and Stratified Sampling. s.l., s.n., p. 531–539.
Nuzzo, R., 2014. Scientific method: Statistical errors. Nature, Volume 506, pp. 150-152.
Reardon, C. L. & Creado, S., 2014. Drug abuse in athletes. Substance Abuse and Rehabilitation, Volume 5, pp. 95-101.
Schmidt, C. & Kohlmann, T., 2008. When to use the odds ratio or the relative risk?. International journal of public health, 53(3), pp. 165-267.
Setia, M. S., 2016. Methodology Series Module 3: Cross-sectional Studies. Indian Journal of Dermatology, 61(3), pp. 261-264.
Strange, C., Fisher, C., Howat, P. & L, W., 2018. Easier to isolate yourself…there’s no need to leave the house”—A qualitative study on the paradoxes of online communication for parents with young children. Computers in Human Behaviour, Volume 83, pp. 168-175.
Tosun, N. & Baris, M. F., 2011. The Place and Importance of Computer and Internet’s In Secondary School Students’ Life. Social and Behavioral Sciences , Volume 28, pp. 530-535.
Voicu, M.-C., 2011. Using the snowball method in marketing research on hidden populations. Challenges of the Knowledge Society, Volume 1, p. 1341–1351.