Create a 10- to 15-slide Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation discussing your team's research proposal.Include the following in your presentation:The research question A summary of the literature re

Methods Paper

February 4th, 2019

Brian Claybrook

As previously discussed during our proposal assignment in Week Two, the area of research we chose to focus on revolves around question and hypothesis of whether or not hypnosis could help smokers decrease their urge to smoke. In this paper, we will discuss our sampling methods, the type of statistics, descriptive or inferential, we will use, definitions of our variables, and how we will operationalize said variables. The purpose of this Methods Paper is so that we, as a team, can show how to properly set up and execute a research study.

Sampling Method

The sampling method that we choose to go with was the stratified sampling method. A stratified sampling method refers to a methodology where researchers divide a total population into smaller groups known as strata. According to The Economic Times (2019), “strata are formed based on some common characteristics in the population data.” After the population is divided into strata, the researchers would then randomly select the sample from each group. In 2016, it was determined that 37.8 million Americans smoke in the United States. Since our team wanted to get a sample that gave us true and unbiased data without having a humongous group, we decided to take a look at the nation’s smoking population. According to the data collected by the CDC from a survey conducted in 2016, there were more men than women smokers, by four percent. Thus, we choose to select a hundred adults, 54% men and 46% women. Out of the current number of smokers, it had been polled that 18% were of the ages 45 to 64, 17% were 25 to 44, and the remain 13% were 18 to 24 years old (Centers for Disease Control Prevention, 2016). Having this information, we decided to make strata according to gender as well as age. From there, we will take samples from each stratum to create a proportionally random sampling group to test our hypothesis on.

Descriptive or Inferential Statistics

For this study, our group decided to use inferential statistics. The reasoning behind this was because inferential statistics revolves around the concept that the data collected from the sample will be used to make inferences about the larger population from which the sample was drawn from (Frost, 2019). In layman’s terms, this means that the data that will be collected from the research will be used to make a general claim regarding the subject matter. In the case of our study, depending on what the study shows, we may say that our findings show us that the hypnosis may or may not possibly reduce the urge to smoke in smokers. Since our group will be using a stratified sampling method, using inferential statistics just made sense because we are trying to figure out whether or not hypnosis can work the general populace of smokers.

Variables

A variable can be defined as an element, feature or factor that is liable to change in quality, quantity, or size as per the researcher’s needs. When considering an experiment, these variables must be taken into consideration because they play specific roles that influence the outcome of said experiment. In a typical scientific experiment, there are three types of variables: the independent, dependent, and control/constant variables. The independent variable is the variable that is manipulated by the researcher. The dependent variable is the variable that researchers observe and measure throughout the experiment. The control/constant variable, as the name implies, is the variable that shouldn’t change throughout the entirety of the experiment. The fourth variable, the extraneous variable or the extra variables, includes all the extra variables that may influence the outcome of said experiment. They technically aren’t really important to the experiment and shouldn’t impact the final outcome of experiment, but they are things that may cause errors in the final findings due to the variables being uncontrollable or what-not. Since our experiment is to determine whether or not hypnosis can reduce the urge to smoke in smokers, our variables would include the following: the smokers/participants and the hypnotherapist/hypnosis. In this experiment, the participants that receive the hypnotherapy would be considered the control/constant variable, as this variable/participant cannot change throughout the entirety of the experiment. The independent variable would be the hypnotherapy because this is the variable the researchers would be introducing into the lives of the smokers/participants. The dependent variable would be the amount cigarettes smoked by the participants. The researchers would be observing this variable to see whether or not if hypnosis, the independent variable, can reduce the number of cigarettes the participants smoke.

Operationalize the Variables

Operationalizing variable implies finding quantifiable, valid index as well as measurable index for the variables. In short, according to McLeod (2018), “operational variable refers to how you will define and measure a specific variable as it is used in your study.” The hypnosis treatment will be measured in the context of the number of sessions that subjects undergo. We would calculate how many sessions patients have undergone and the length of the hypnotherapy sessions. Since our study is see if whether or not hypnotherapy can reduce the urge in smokers to smoke, another variable that we would need to define is the term “reduce”. To quantify “reduce”, we must figure out how many cigarettes each participant smokes on average in a given time to be able to determine if hypnotherapy did or didn’t reduce the smokers urge to smoke. We would also have to keep not of how many cigarettes each participant smokes during the length of the experiment. Thus, by defining these operational variables, we are able to make clear what it is we mean by the terms as they were studied and measured in our experiment (McLeod, 2018).

Conclusion

In conclusion, by specifically stating the purpose of our experiment, our modus operandi, and the intricacies of our variables, we are able to take the next step in actually going through with our study. Our Methods Paper is to our experiment what an outline is to an essay. It gives us a better picture of what our study may look like before we put our plans into motion; thus, saving us time and allowing us to preemptively find errors before they actually happen in our research study.

Centers for Disease Control Prevention. (2016). Retrieved from

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm

Frost, J. (2019). Statistics By Jim. Retrieved from http://statisticsbyjim.com/basics/descriptive-inferential-statistics/

The Economic Times(2019). Retrieved from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/stratified-sampling