LASA 1 Final Project Early Methods Section

Assignment 2: LASA 1: Final Project: Early Methods Section
What is your research question?

Does the after-treatment training determine the success of the chemical dependency treatment?

What is your hypothesis or hypotheses? What is the null hypothesis?

Null Hypothesis: The after-treatment training does not determine the success of the chemical dependency treatment.

Alternative Hypothesis: The after treatment training determine the success of the chemical dependency treatment.

How many participants would you like to use and why? What are the inclusion characteristics, i.e., what must they have in order to be included in your study (for example, gender, diagnosis, age, personality traits, etc.)? Are there any exclusion characteristics, i.e. are there certain characteristics that would exclude them from being in your study? Does the sample need to be diverse? Why or why not?

The inclusion criterion in this case is that the participants have to be having the problem of being addicted to chemical dependency. In addition, the participants have to be undergoing the chemical dependency treatment. The exclusion criteria is that those who were not admitted into the treatment facility at the same time will be excluded. This means that the participants will be only those who were admitted to the treatment facility at the same time.

What sampling technique will be used to collect your sample? What population does your sample generalize to?

The sample will be selected by identifying those admitted to the chemical dependency treatment centers or facilities. Sampling technique will be stratified so that those being treated for alcohol are analyzed differently from those being treated for other chemical dependencies apart from alcohol. The sample will generalize population because enough size of the sample will be used in this case.

The study will focus on two variables. The dependent variable in this case is the success of the chemical dependency treatment. This will be measured by getting back to the participants after some time to see whether the chemical dependency habits have recurred or not. The other variable, which is after treatment training, is the independent variable. The treatment period in this case will be categorized into no after-treatment training and presence of after-treatment training.

• What are the variables in your study? HINT: Refer back to your hypothesis or hypotheses.

Provide operational definitions for each variable.

As mentioned above, the dependent variable is going to be the success of the treatment. If the treatment of the chemical dependency becomes successful, then it means that there will be no indications of chemical dependency in future. Therefore, the success of the chemical dependency is going to be determined some time after the particular treatment has been administered to the person. The significance of determining the success of the treatment is that it will help in understanding or knowing whether the problem of chemical dependency can completely be eradicated in one’s life or whether it is there to stay irrespective of the treatment (Condelli & Hubbard, 1994).

According to one behavioral study, the recovery rate for drug dependency in a research that gave patients feedback on the electrical activity of the brain as well as the conventional or traditional treatment for substance or drug use. The success rate can vary depending on whether the participants receive after-treatment training or not. Therefore, there will be two categories of patients or participants as far as this variable is concerned. The first category is the participants who will receive after-treatment training and the second category is the participants who will not receive after-treatment training (Luchansky, et al., 2000).

How will you measure each variable? Discuss the reliability and validity of these measures in general terms.

The dependent variable will be measured by getting back to the participants who were subjected to both kinds of treatment after some time, for instance, two years and finding out the number of each group, which have completely recovered from drug dependency. This will be an interval variable because it will be measured by counting those who recovered and those who did not recover. This measure is reliable and valid because it is based on real observations. However, the reliability and validity is affected by the sample size. For it to be reliable and valid, the sample size has to be big. The independent variable will be measured by dividing the participants into two groups. One group will be the experimental group and the other group will be the control group. This measure will be reliable and valid if all the conditions for treatment are the same for both groups except for the post-treatment therapy that will be administered to the experimental group (Condelli & Hubbard, 1994).

What technique will be used for data collection (e.g., observation, survey, interview, archival, etc.)?

Interview will be used for collecting data in this case. During the interview, the participants are classified into the experimental and the control groups after the end of the treatment. After two years of post treatment, each group will be asked some questions to determine whether they still have problems with the chemical dependency. The aim of these questions is to determine whether there is relapse (Levin, Culkin & Perrotto, 2001).

What type of research design is being used?

The kind of research design that will be used in this case is quantitative design. This is because the kind of data to be collected will be numerical. In other words, the number of experimental group participants and the control group participants will be obtained and then used for analysis or for determining the success rates of the treatment.

Briefly discuss the procedure that would be followed when conducting the research.

In this study, the procedure will start by identification of the participants. In this case, a drug rehabilitation center will be selected. In this center, the patients who have been admitted to the rehab center for treatment are selected randomly. Then the patients are grouped into experimental and control groups. Both groups will be subjected to conventional treatment. After this treatment, the experimental group will be subjected to neurofeedback training. Once both therapies have been administered, the patients are released. After two years, the participants belonging to each group are interviewed to determine whether any has experienced any form of relapse. The number of those who have experienced relapse is collected for each group. The data is then analyzed (Grenier, 1985).

What are some POTENTIAL ethical issues? How might they be addressed?

During the collection of information, one of the ethical issues is that the participants may not be ready to have their information known to the researchers. This means that they may not consent to the idea of giving out their information. Collecting and using the data without their consent will therefore, be unethical.

References:

Condelli, W. S., & Hubbard, R. L. (1994). Relationship between time spent in treatment and client outcomes from therapeutic communities. Journal of substance abuse treatment, 11(1), 25-33.

Grenier, C. (1985). Treatment effectiveness in an adolescent chemical dependency treatment program: A quasi-experimental design. Substance Use & Misuse, 20(3), 381-391.

Luchansky, B., Brown, M., Longhi, D., Stark, K., & Krupski, A. (2000). Chemical dependency treatment and employment outcomes: results from the ‘ADATSA’program in Washington State. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 60(2), 151-159.

Levin, J. D., Culkin, J., & Perrotto, R. S. (2001). Introduction to chemical dependency counseling. Northvale, N.J: Jason Aronson.