Depression

As Mandy is demonstrating for you, sometimes you may get depressed or down. What can you do about these blues? A few suggestions – do something for someone else. Strange as it may seem, helping others often is a boost to mood.

Make a plan for the next week or so, remind yourself of your goals and think about how you can get a step or two closer in the next week.

My final suggestion is to try something new, take an art or language class, or learn a new skill. Do something that gets you excited again. If you find that you are depressed for a long period or feel suicidal, please talk to your physician or a licensed therapist.

Next time, we will have a guest blogger. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Confidentiality breach

Imagine that you are doing a program evaluation. You will survey participants before the program begins and again after the program. In order to match each person’s pre and post program survey, you will have them write their names on each form. Somehow during the data collection a few surveys get left behind. This is a breach of confidentiality. Someone else could see the responses and know who wrote them. In a program setting, that may not seem a serious offense, but consider if it was one’s supervisor that saw a derogatory comment about him or herself.

What to do? First, as soon as the loss is realized, get the surveys back in your possession. Second, report the breach to your committee and the IRB. They may want you to notify the individuals involved, but let them make that decision. You also may want to consider not using names in studies, instead ask people to pick a number or phrase that they will enter on the pre survey and remember for the post survey. 

Next time, we will discuss depression. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Inappropriate disclosure

In interviews, you may have someone tell you things that are inappropriate, such scenarios include child or abuse, and disclosing medical or education information.

What to do? As soon as you realize where they are going, stop them. Say that this is information you should not be told and move on with the study. The exception, is if you are a mandated reporter (check the laws in your state, some states say that everyone is a mandated reporter for child or elder abuse), in this case you are ethically required to report the incident to the appropriate authorities. I suggest first consulting with your committee and the IRB. Your status as a mandated reporter must be disclosed in the consent form. Such disclosures are unusual, but you need to be prepared in case they do happen.

Whenever you run into something unexpected, know that you can contact your methodologist and/ or the IRB for help. Next time, we will consider issues in quantitative data analyses. 

Next time, we will discuss breaches of confidentiality. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Data Collection Issues

Occasionally you may have participants indicate that they want to stop and do not want to continue in your study. This is most common with special populations, such as the elderly and ill.

What to do? First, I suggest asking if a break might help (and if you can recognize the need for one early, all the better). Second, as frustrating as it may be, you should just thank them for coming and let them go.

Incomplete data. Thus far I have been addressing in-person research concerns, but one that is very common with online data collection is participants skipping questions. Some standardized surveys are invalid if questions are skipped.

What to do? In person, you can do a quick check to see if any data is missing. Online is trickier. Most survey programs (like survey monkey) allow the option for requiring answers to the questions. There are some positives and negatives to consider with this. The positive is that your data will be complete, with no missing responses. The negative is some people will quit the survey if they can’t skip responses. 

Next time, we will discuss inappropriate disclosure. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

A guest blogger!

Today we have a guest post from health psych student, Dorothy Jolley.

I recently thought of my husband’s remarks: "You can only think of one thing at a time."  I am a multitasker and inevitably it lands me in trouble.  How valid is thinking of one thing only? When I have reminded myself to take a deep breath and do an immediate prioritized task, forget about the rest, life seemed to fall into place.  However, I am reluctant to accept advice from my partner and maybe that is my problem :)

I recently learned that thousands of fear-struck students succeed when they thought they would fail (Salkind, 2006).  They did it by doing one thing at a time (Salkind, 2006).  Bill Mansell (2013) said that the power of the mind is released only if you focus on one thing at a time.  The mind is like a stage, only one performance can play at a time (Mansell, 2013).  You decide what plays on the stage of your mind. For example, what would happen if factory workers tried to produce baskets and radios on an assembly line at the same time?  Chaos.  The human mind is the same.  For the mind to release the power of thinking – think of one thing at a time. 

Multitasking is especially prevalent in colleges and universities, instructors find it another barrier to student learning (Kamal, Dong, & Kevlin, 2016).  In a college classroom, students check emails, text, tweet, or play games while supposedly listening to the instructor (Kamal et al., 2016).  These distractions cause interference in learning.  A study found that when student’s mindfulness improved, changes in mood, perceived stress, and better sleep patterns became evident (Caldwell et al., 2010).  By minimizing multitasking in an academic setting, it reduces the ability of students to retain what they learn (Caldwell et al., 2010). 

Hence, we can only think of one thing at a time to allow a more intense focus on what we are doing or studying.  The mind’s power is released if we think one thing at a time and by being mindful of a task on hand it produces better mental and physical balance.   

References

Salkind, N. J. (2017). Tests & measurement for people who (think they) hate tests & measurement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Mansell, B. (2013). Focus your thinking.  Retrieved from http://www.mindperk.com/articles/focus-your-thinking/

Caldwell, K., Harrison, M., Adams, M., Quin, R. H., & Greeson, J. (2010). Developing mindfulness in college students through movement-based courses: effects on self-regulatory self-efficacy, mood, stress, and sleep quality. Journal of American College Health, 58(5), 433-442. doi. 10.1080/07448480903540481

Data Collection Problems and Resolutions, part 2

Questionable data. When you are collecting in-person data, you may have someone act strangely, making you suspect drugs or alcohol use. Another scenario is that someone hands in a “completed” survey in a few minutes, as compared to the 20 minutes others took.

What to do? First, make sure you are safe in the case of strange behavior (I once had a participant break the chair in which he was sitting from rocking and bouncing the chair due to amphetamine use). If there are any concerns, thank them for coming and get them out the door quietly. Second, mark their data forms, with the behavior that concerns you. Later when you analyze data, check whether their data deviates from the norm. Discuss the issue with your methodologist and make a joint decision about whether to include the data in the analyses. 

Next time, we will have a guest blogger. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Data Collection Problems and Resolutions

Things happen in the real world when you are conducting a study, as the researcher it is your responsibility to both recognize the issue and resolve it. I am going to talk today about some of the most common issues that may arise.

Confidentiality breach. Imagine that you are doing a program evaluation. You will survey participants before the program begins and again after the program. In order to match each person’s pre and post program survey, you will have them write their names on each form. Somehow during the data collection a few surveys get left behind. This is a breach of confidentiality. Someone else could see the responses and know who wrote them. In a program setting, that may not seem a serious offense, but consider if it was one’s supervisor that saw a derogatory comment about him or herself.

What to do? First, as soon as the loss is realized, get the surveys back in your possession. Second, report the breach to your committee and the IRB. They may want you to notify the individuals involved, but let them make that decision. You also may want to consider not using names in studies, instead ask people to pick a number or phrase that they will enter on the pre survey and remember for the post survey.

Next time, we will give thanks. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu