Independent Internet Research- Valid Research?

Hawthorne Effects- temporary change in behavior and performance in response to a change in the environmental conditions; subjects behavioral studies change their performance as a result of being observed; can be due to new or increased attention; used to identify any type of short-lived or increase productivity.
-This term was originally used to describe how people reacted to changes in their work environment and worker productivity, it is now used in all types of experiments and trials and is a confounding variable in the results.
-Experimenters and study participants may be guilty of committing the Hawthorne Effect.

Studies and criticisms of the Hawthorne Effect describe the direct application of this concept to modern human resources, organizational behavior, and management theories. I read in a HBS publication that leadership that pays sufficient attention to the people and cultural variables and the relationships among people are more successful than ones that do not. Basically, improving employees’ work environment will make them more productive. The article credits the historical Hawthorne experiments with ideas concerning motivational influences, job satisfaction, and resistance to change, group norms, worker participation, and effective leadership.

Placebo Effects- medical phenomenon in which an inert treatment (the placebo) improves a patient’s condition relative to similar patients who receive no treatment at all; placebos have no effect on the body, but patients treated with them report improvement similar to the experimental substance
-Related to the patient's beliefs about what the placebo will do
-Physiological effect of a placebo depends upon its suggested or anticipated action
-Related to this power of expectation is the person’s belief that the treatment that they are taking is real: in both those taking real drugs and those taking placebos, those that believe they are taking the real treatment (whether they in fact are or not) show a stronger effect, and vise versa, those that think they are taking the placebo (whether they are or not) a lesser one.
-Used to create "blind" trials in which the participants do not know whether they are getting the active treatment or not, so that physical effects can be measured independently of the participants' expectations--expectations are equal in all cases.

The Placebo Effect is not limited to medicine or substances. In the 70’s, it was examined for the interest of subliminal messages in advertising. The purpose of certain words and animal figures subliminally placed in advertising was to buy the products or follow the suggestions in the ads.

*Both the Hawthorne and Placebo are effects of EXPECTATION.

Convenience Samples- patients are selected at the convenience of the researcher; researcher makes no attempt, or only a limited attempt, to insure that this sample is an accurate representation of some larger group or population
-The people who were left out might behave differently than the people in the convenience sample, therefore the results may not be indicative of the larger population of interest
-Non-probability sampling technique
-Selected only according to specific characteristics that the researcher cares about

No comments:

Post a Comment