Critique of Research Design
The purpose of this critique is to analyze the design of a research study conducted by; Donna Kazemi, Maureen Levine, Jacek Dmochowski, Mary Nies, and Linman Sun called “Effects of Motivational Interviewing Intervention on Blackouts Amoung College Freshman”. It was accepted in January 21st, 2013 and was published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship.
This study was conducted on 188 volunteer freshmen at a southern university. Kazemi et al. (2013) state the goals of the study were to see if motivational interviewing (MI) worked as an effective intervention to reduce blackouts among freshman, who partook in high-risk drinking or drug use, during a sixth month period. Additionally the study sought to see if there was an association between blackouts among freshman based on race or gender. The research design was a longitudinal study in which students were given motivational interviewing (MI) as an intervention at baseline, two weeks, three months, and. six month time periods while enrolled in school. Assessments of participants drinking and blackouts were taken on baseline day and at six months. Researchers assessed for changes to participants number of blackouts, drinking or drug use (Kazemi et al., 2013).
Longitudinal design was used in this study to monitor the same participants over six months. A threat to the validity of this design can be drop out of participants. This can be attributed to the length of a longitudinal study. However in this study researchers were successful at maintaining all participants. The researchers asked all participants in advance if they could commit to all four sessions and if they could not then they were not used as part of the study. Therefore, all 188 participants selected completed the entire program (Kazemi et al., 2013).
Longitudinal design validity is also dependent upon using set time intervals that make sense with the research being performed. This study does not say explicitly express how intervals for MI instruction were chosen. Furthermore, the study does not explain why or how intervals for pre and post assessments were decided. This is important because past research may have told how long it takes for MI to be...