Blog Reflection

I had a really good experience on this PNP3002 course as I found there were different kinds of motivation that helped me to engage in class every week. I would like to talk more about the small group section which we needed to present our blogs. As a group around fifteen students presented their blogs, which meant we may learn different topics. I thought students would not learn or read so many topics in their leisure time although we needed to do two comments. We may share our ideas and had a discussion which could improve our critical thinking. Research found that students did well in small groups. For example, they could increase students’ communication skills, encourage student reflection and active life-long learning (O’Neill, 2003). If there was a discussion part like what we did in the small group section, it would benefit on critical thinking and higher order learning than a big class situation. Students were more satisfied with the small class discussion (Hamann, Pollock & Wilson, 2010). Students shared their ideas and reflections which became a positive atmosphere for learning.

Intrinsic motivation and autonomous are related to self-determination. Students have high self-determination will increase their motivation on learning. I thought it was a benefit when students could choose their own topic for the blogs. They would like to search more information or researches, did extra reading which they felt really interesting. Deci and his team (1991) suggested that an environment which offered choice, acknowledging feelings, gave information that was needed for decision making and minimized control would be really positive for students to engage in learning. Students studied with autonomous motivation would like to use learning strategies as an advantage on learning and skills enhancement (Wachob, 2006). In conclusion, PNP3002 provided freedom, critical thinking and reflection which could increase our motivation on our work or attend to class.

 

Word count: 310

Reference:

Deci, E. L., Vallerand, R. J., Pelletier, L. G., & Ryan, R. M. (1991). Motivation and education: The self-determination perspective. Educational psychologist,26(3-4), 325-346.

Hamann, K., Pollock, P., & Wilson, B. (2010). Comparing the Benefits of Small-Group and Large-Class Discussions. In APSA 2010 Teaching & Learning Conference Paper.

O’Neill, G. (2003). Small Group (Including Tutorials) & Large Group Teaching. Centre for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from http://www.inspire.anglia.ac.uk/assets/Uploads/workshops/LTInPractice/Day1/smallGroupLargeGroup.pdf

Wachob, P. (2006). Methods and materials for motivation and learner autonomy. Reflections on English Language Teaching, 5(1), 93-122.

Motivation and Emotion on Internet Addiction

Nowadays, high technology always around us and we can use internet everywhere. Internet addiction is not a new disorder; research had first done in 1996 by Young which people started alert the problem of internet. Basically, internet addiction included cyber-relationship, online gaming, gambling and database searching (Saisan, Smith, Robinson, & Segal, 2013). People cannot balance their online and offline life, overuse on internet and function badly in daily life (Neporent, 2013). It is interesting to see the motivation and emotion behind internet addiction, which suppose keep increasing in the coming few years as internet become a part of our life.

Researchers had found different reasons behind people who had internet addiction. Normally people use internet to work, otherwise they would use it for entertainment and they would feel pleasure or rewarding feelings. Learning theory suggests a combination of pleasurable outcome and habitual behaviour, which affect people will have internet addictive more easily (Khang & Kim, 2013). Other reasons including interpersonal relationship, enormous information, achievement and need for escape (Kim & Park, 2007). If the users feel positive moods while using internet, it will encourage and maintain excessive internet usage although they may aware the negative impact. Khang and Kim found that internet addiction related to self-esteem, self-control. As those people would like to avoid negative feedback from others, easy to lose control on time spent and escaped from negative feelings (2013). Moreover, a research found that low social self-efficacy and external academic locus of control would increase internet addiction (İskender & Akin, 2010). It meant they were lack of social skills and contact, also believed other factors (luck, people and environment) were powerful than their individual control. As they could not control their time on internet, it may affect their relationships with people, job opportunities and future plans (Chak & Leung, 2004).

Internet addiction can affect human behaviour and emotion change. A main problem will occur from those people, which is the communication to the ‘real’ world. They spent many hours on internet and could not maintain the relationships with real and known people. Internet addiction patients would like to remain loneliness or communicated with virtual subject (Tonioni et al., 2012). Besides, they could easily felt criticism by others, shyness and had hurt feelings (Mustafa, 2011). They could still make new friends, but only based on online relationship. People may felt confidential, less threatening and easy to stop communication than real life (Young, 1998).

Internet addiction patients usually suffer emotion problems like depression and anxiety. Tonioni and his group found that people who spent more hours on internet, they may increase depression and anxiety levels (2012). If people spent too much time on internet, they would experience relationship, academic and occupation problem, so they would have psychiatric symptoms. Besides, internet addiction patients used internet more than normal people when they were depressed (Young, 1998). Research did in Korea found that internet addiction also increased suicidal ideation; sometimes we can see some suicidal news related to online game players (Kim et al., 2006).

To conclude, when people have unstable emotion, it will increase their time on internet. However, internet addiction can make our emotion become worse. Like other addiction, people usually use internet as a way to escape from the ‘real’ world. Different personalities also affect the time people spend on internet. We shall set up treatments to prevent internet addiction, based on social and emotion support. Just to remind, if you spend more than 38-40 hours on internet per week, then you may have internet addiction disorder.

Word count: 587

Reference

Chak, K., & Leung, L. (2004). Shyness and locus of control as predictors of internet addiction and internet use. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7(5), 559-570.

İskender, M., & Akin, A. (2010). Social self-efficacy, academic locus of control, and internet addiction. Computers & education, 54(4), 1101-1106.

Khang, H., Kim, J. K., & Kim, Y. (2013). Self-traits and motivations as antecedents of digital media flow and addiction: The Internet, mobile phones, and video games. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(6), 2416-2424.

Kim, K., Ryu, E., Chon, M. Y., Yeun, E. J., Choi, S. Y., Seo, J. S., & Nam, B. W. (2006). Internet addiction in Korean adolescents and its relation to depression and suicidal ideation: a questionnaire survey. International journal of nursing studies, 43(2), 185-192.

Kim, Y., & Park, S. (2007). A study on the online game use influences in game flow and addiction: Focusing on the uses and gratifications approach. Korean Journal of Journalism and Communication Studies, 51(1), 355–377.

Mustafa, K. O. Ç. (2011). Internet addiction and psychopatology. TOJET, 10(1).

Neporent, L. (2013, September 4). Hospital First in US to Treat Internet Addiction. ABC News. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/Health/hospital-opens-internet-addiction-treatment-program/story?id=20146923

Saisan, J., Smith, M., Robinson, L., & Segal, J. (2013). Internet & Computer Addiction: Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment. Helpguide. Retrieved from http://www.helpguide.org/mental/internet_cybersex_addiction.htm

Tonioni, F., D’Alessandris, L., Lai, C., Martinelli, D., Corvino, S., Vasale, M., … & Bria, P. (2012). Internet addiction: hours spent online, behaviors and psychological symptoms. General hospital psychiatry, 34(1), 80-87.

Young, K. S. (1998). Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 1(3), 237-244.

The motivations and emotions behind all football fans

Football games just like other sports which full of passion and emotion. Not only show from the players, and also for the supporters. Football fans can be very aggressive as football hooliganism keep increasing in this few years around the world, also lots of people get arrested (McTague, 2013). Besides, the team performance and the results can affect how the fans react in the coming few days (Jones, 2012). It is quite interesting to discover the motivations and emotions behind all football fans.

Jones and his team had done a research on fans’ emotion change in 2012. They found English and Spanish fans and based on the 2010 World Cup, which England was out on the early stage and Spain was the champion. Both fans showed significant change in emotional state after their teams won or lost. Moreover, their emotion would maintain for few days. For example, the Spanish fans remain positive emotional for four days as their team won the World Cup. It also motivated their behaviour more positive like spending more money than usual. From those results, Jones indicated that group membership was the factor to influence fans’ emotion. The result could support by previous study did by Kerr in 2005, which found fans’ emotion changed significantly post-game. Especially for the lost side, fans scored higher on anger, boredom and unpleasant emotions.

As football fans carry an unstable emotional state after the match, it can explain why they would become more aggressive and football hooliganism arise. A study found that male football fans may translate their violence and intolerance to other aggressive behaviours, which could define as a defence or reformulated emotion against the confusion (Harvey, 2013). Ward Jr. tried to explore the reasons behind fans violence included football fans. For example, instinct theory which could imply fans express their self-destructive emotion by any sport events. Frustration-aggression theory could explain their emotion change lead to aggressive behaviour, if they had high team identification or the team played really poor. Besides, collective mind theory and figuration theory both could explain the importance of the club and a large of fans (Ward Jr, 2002). Moreover, “we-group” versus “they-group” could drive the aggression between two groups of fans (Dunning, 2000). Just imagine what happen if the opponents deride to you and your team after losing the match.

Another interesting topic is about the motivation behind football fans’ attendance in every match. An explanation suggested by Funk in 2012 was the self-determination, which has two orientations (autonomy and control orientation). Both orientations could explain why fans purchase team products or wear merchandise. Control orientation could influence the desired worth of socialization and satisfy their needs. Autonomy orientation can influence a sport consumer motivation. Besides, research did from other countries indicated that Chinese fans motivated by self-defining motivation and obligation motivation for Korean fans on attendance (Lu, 2012). Australian football fans could motivate by player interest, socialization, drama, entertainment value and vicarious achievement (Neale, 2006).

To conclude, football just like other sports which full of passion and aggression. Although those emotions could lead to a negative behaviour, it also helped fans to release their emotion in a positive way. News from BBC that a research did by Mental Health Foundation indicated that male football fans could easier to share their feelings to someone and express it (2006). It just like an addiction for the fans, no matter which sports you like. Some football fans even thought this sport like a religion and cried when watching football (2008). However, all the fans should try to calm down and prevent any aggressive behaviour. 

Reference:

Dunning, E. (2000). Towards a sociological understanding of football hooliganism as a world phenomenon. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 8, 141-162

Football ‘helps men show emotion’. (2006, May 29). BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5004564.stm

Football Passion. (2008). Report of research conducted by The Social Issues Research Centre. Retrieved from http://www.sirc.org/football/

Funk, D. C., Beaton, A., & Alexandris, K. (2012). Sport consumer motivation: Autonomy and control orientations that regulate fan behaviours. Sport Management Review, 15(3), 355-367.

Harvey, A., & Piotrowska, A. (2013). Intolerance and joy, violence and love among male football fans: towards a psychosocial explanation of ‘excessive’behaviours. Sport in Society, 16(10), 1404-1413.

Jones, M. V., Coffee, P., Sheffield, D., Yangüez, M., & Barker, J. B. (2012). Just a game? Changes in English and Spanish soccer fans’ emotions in the 2010 World Cup. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13(2), 162-169.

Kerr, J. H., Wilson, G. V., Nakamura, I., & Sudo, Y. (2005). Emotional dynamics of soccer fans at winning and losing games. Personality and Individual Differences, 38(8), 1855-1866.

Lu, Z., Kahle, L. R., Lee, S. M., & Lee, S. Y. (2012). Football Fans’ Contrasting Motivations: China, S. Korea, and the USA. Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 6(1), 9-32.

McTague, T. (2013). Football hooliganism is back on the rise: See how your club performs in the league of shame. Mirror News. Retrieved from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/football-hooliganism-rising-how-your-2355308

Neale, L., & Funk, D. (2006). Investigating motivation, attitudinal loyalty and attendance behaviour with fans of Australian football. International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship, 7(4), 307-319.

Ward Jr, R. E. (2002). Fan violence: Social problem or moral panic?.Aggression and violent behavior, 7(5), 453-475.

What motivate people to gamble?

Usually people who first start gambling, they would think it was just an entertainment game. However, some people may addict to gamble and problem gambling occurs as gamblers cannot control themselves. NHS Choices indicated that there were about 450,000 problem gamblers in UK (2013). The reasons behind this problem, some people suggested that they may find excitement and wish to win more money. This blog will try to analyse what emotion and motivation cause the popularity of gambling.

Gamblers usually have only one target and that is winning in every bet, so they can get a monetary reward. That can be explained by incentive theory of motivation as it suggest human’s behaviour is motivated by external reward. A research did by Lee in South Korea, he wanted to find out which is the most effective factors on gambling (Lee, 2007). Those results showed that monetary motive model had a positive influence on gambling more than other models (socialization, excitement, avoidance and amusement). Besides, no direct effect on gambling from avoidance and excitement. They believed those finding may improve the therapy of gambling as the main motivation had already found out.

However, there were different studies suggest other motivations could lead to gambling. A research did from Canada found those high self-determined motivational people (i.e., want to gamble for fun and have a sense of choice) had a higher percentage of involvement in gambling (Chantal, 1995), also male participants’ involvement were higher than female participants. They reported the reason behind gambling mostly related to excitement and accomplishment. That is quite different compare with Lee’s research as participants thought gambling can get internal reward.

If people want to feel good (pleasure and excitement) from gambling, we can explain this situation by hedonism. It means gambling is motivated by desire to obtain pleasure. A study found that excitement was one of the motivations for betting on horse in UK (Bruce, 1992). However, some studies found that people seldom found pleasure after gambling, or even got worse like feeling guilt and shame when they loss (Yi & Kanetkar, 2011). It could be a sign of problem gambling as well, under the guidance from Royal College of Psychiatrists (2013).

A report did from Swedish National Institute of Public Health has identified different reasons and backgrounds behind gamblers (Binde, 2009). It suggested people gambling were cause by five motivational models. The first one was people wanted to win a huge sums of money which they wish can hit the jackpot. Second was about social rewards with three dimensions (communion, competition and ostentation). Third one was mood change during gambling; they may want to perceived positive feeling and escape from the outside world. Forth one was people wanted to go after the chance of winning all the games as it can produce a wonderful feeling and experience. The last one was about intellectual challenge (2009).

There were lots of studies found out different motivations and involvement behind gambling. However, high motivations and involvements are not guarantee people have problem gambling. Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre had divided them into direct and indirect risk and separated clearly (Abbott, 2013). Indirect risk factor included environmental conditions, biological, emotional and social factors. Direct risk included two dimensions which were risk cognitions and risk practices, basically under psychological like superstition, intentions and their own control.

In conclusion, there are different motivations behind gambling include internal and external factors. Luckily, doctors and psychologist can base on those motivations, set up different types of therapies. Some well-known methods like peer support, cognitive behavioural therapy and gamblers anonymous. We must remember that gambling is only for fun and entertainment.

Word count: 605

References

Abbott, M., Binde, P., Hodgins, D., Korn, D., Pereira, A., Volberg, R., Williams, R. (2013). Conceptual Framework of Harmful Gambling: An International Collaboration. The Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre (OPGRC). Retrieved from http://www.gamblingresearch.org/conceptualframework/

Binde, P. (2009). Gambling motivation and involvement: a review of social science research. Statens Folkhälsoinstitut, Rapport R, (20).

Bruce, A. C., & Johnson, J. E. V. (1992). Toward an explanation of betting as a leisure pursuit. Leisure Studies, 11(3), 201-218..

Chantal, Y., Vallerand, R. J., & Vallieres, E. F. (1995). Motivation and gambling involvement. The Journal of Social Psychology, 135(6), 755-763.

Gambling addiction (2013). NHS Choices. Retrieved from http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/addiction/Pages/gamblingaddiction.aspx

Lee, H. P., Chae, P. K., Lee, H. S., & Kim, Y. K. (2007). The five-factor gambling motivation model. Psychiatry Research, 150(1), 21-32.

RCPsych Public Education Editorial Board. (2013). Problem gambling. Royal College of Psychiatrists. Retrieved from http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/problemsdisorders/problemgambling.aspx

Yi, S., & Kanetkar, V. (2011). Coping with guilt and shame after gambling loss. Journal of Gambling Studies, 27(3), 371-387.

Deception and debriefing

In different kinds of experiments, researchers sometimes need to use deception during the process. It is not a fault to use deception as it can produce a precise result finally. I would call it a good intention. Debriefing usually use in the final part of the experiment especially when deception is there. Researchers need to explain the “real” process and purpose of the experiment and confirm the participants do not have any bad feeling after that.

Deception is quite useful. A research called “Effects of deceiving and debriefing psychological subjects on performance in later experiments” by Silverman (1970) found that deception increased the tendency for favorable self-presentation and decreases compliance with demand characteristics. It is important for participants perform naturally in the experiment. Also, researchers sometimes need to take a picture or video for their presentation. They cannot do it without participant’s permission. It is a kind of deception and of cause they should explain in the debriefing section. Participants must be deceived as little as possible, and any deception must not cause distress, if the participant is likely to object or be distressed once they discover the true nature of the research at debriefing, then the study is unacceptable (McLeod, 2007).

Debriefing can be an important part as participants may get distress after the experiment (also can cause by deception). They must protect from physical and mental harm. Researchers can depend rather us individual or group method (Fisher, 2005). I think individual debriefing is much better as research can fully concentrate on participant, also participants can express their negative feeling as they may concern others will listen their conversation. However, it is quite difficult for us because we do not know many skills on debriefing; it may helpless if we faced some of the participants who have negative feeling. Can we learn by somewhere ?

Silverman, Irwin; Shulman, Arthur D.; Wiesenthal, David L. Effects of deceiving and debriefing psychological subjects on performance in later experiments, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology vol. 14 issue 3 March 1970. p. 203-212

McLeod, S. A. (2007). Simply Psychology; Psychology Research Ethics.Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/Ethics.html

Fisher, Celia B. 2005. “Deception Research Involving Children: Ethical Practices and Paradoxes.” Ethics and Behavior 15(3): 271-287

How can we define attractiveness in experiment

One year ago, I had a chance to do a research about attractiveness in Hong Kong. My group needs to find out whether there is a relationship between attractiveness and helping behavior. We set the experiment by chosen a boy and a girl from our group members who are the most attractiveness one, they held many books in their hands and pretended dropped it all, let saw would people helped them picked up the books. In some experiments which related to attractiveness or beautiful about human, maybe some of you have done it before by SONA here. I sometimes confused about how can researchers define attractiveness?

By my experience, my group use scale method to choose who is the most attractiveness. My group mates and I chose a normal face picture and gave like hundred people to mark it. High score means the most attractiveness one and low score for the ugly one. However, I did not know was a good method or not. People have different opinion about attractiveness, sometimes may depends on their facial, body or personality. Some people may still think Angelina Jolie is not beautiful woman although most of us think she is.

Langlois and Roggman had proposed an article called “Attractive face are only average” in 1990. They wanted to systematically examine whether averageness is linked with facial attractiveness. They selected photographs of 192 male and female faces, each of which was computer scanned. Then made computer-processed composites of each image. As 2, 4, 8, 16, 32-face composites, these component faces were rated by other people by scale. Finally they found the result that 32-face composite score higher than other. Moreover, Dr. Stephen introduces a system called Marquardt beauty analysis (MBA). It dedicated to proactively researching human visual aesthetics, including its biological and mathematical bases, and to utilizing the results of that research to develop and provide information and technology with which to analyze and positively modify human visual attractiveness. MBA introduces a mask which they think is “fitting beauty”. If people fit with the mask, then they should be defining as attractiveness.

To conclude, sometimes it difficult to consider what is attractiveness in the experiment. Maybe next time we became a researcher and do a topic like this, we may confuse which ways should we choose. People still have different opinions about attractiveness or beauty. What is your opimion?

Reference: Langlois, J. H. & Roggman, L. A. (1990). “Attractive faces are only average.” Psychological Science, 1, 115-121.

Marquardt beauty mask: http://www.beautyanalysis.com/

Chi-square test goodness-of-fit test

This time I want to talk about chi-square test goodness-of-fit test. It is one of the nonparametric tests. As I talked about it last few weeks, nonparametric tests used for nominal or ordinal data and they are less powerful. There are two well-known tests. One is Goodness-of-fit test and the other one is test of independence.

Chi-square test goodness-of-fit test is a nonparametric inferential procedure that determines how well an observed frequency distribution fits an expected distribution. Expected frequency means frequency expected in category if the sample data represent the population. Observed frequency means which participants fall into a category. Let me take an example, suppose a researcher is interested in determining whether the teenage pregnancy rate at a particular high school is different from the rate statewide, say 17%. If N = 80, expected frequency for pregnancy is 14 (= 80 X 17%) and the opposite should be 66 (= 80 X 83%). If you find only 7 pregnant teenagers and 73 who are not, after calculate by Chi-square formula, we can know that the obtained value is larger, so we reject the null hypothesis and conclude the observed frequency of pregnancy is significantly lower than expected by chance.

What I think about goodness-of-fit test is that it is quite general. Whatever discrete or continuous distribution, it seems to be fit to apply it. Goodness-of-fit indices are often used to supplement chi-square tests of lack of fit in evaluating the acceptability of structural equation and other models. A high goodness-of-fit index may be an encouraging sign that a model is useful even when it fails to fit exactly on statistical grounds (Mulaik, 1988). However, there are some disadvantages that we need to think carefully. This test does not assess all aspects of a model’s appropriateness for data. Hypotheses regarding structural coefficients that are predicted to be nonzero in the population but are estimated as free parameters in the model are not directly assessed by goodness-of-fit indices. One can obtain a high goodness-of-fit index value for a model in which certain structural coefficients hypothesized to be nonzero but treated as free parameters turn out to have estimated values of zero(Giere, 1985).

To conclude, goodness-of-fit tests should only be used conditionally on a significant chi-square for the appropriate null model which if one rejects the hypothesis that all structural coefficients are simultaneously equal to zero and on the significance of tests of individual parameters of special salience to a model.

Reference: 1) Giere, R. N. (1985). Constructive realism. In P. M. Churchland & C. A. Hooker (Eds.), Images of science Chicago: University of Chicago Press

2) Mulaik, S. A., James, L. R., Van Alstine, J., Bennett, N., Lind, S., & Stilwell, C. D. (1989). Evaluation of goodness-of-fit index for structural equation models. Psychological Bulletin, 105(3), 430-445. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.105.3.430

Is it ethically ok to use internet sources as data for qualitative studies?

Nowadays, internet provides lots of information for humans. We can find different articles, journals, books (duplicate). Also, there are different ideas and opinions come from the internet users, examples like Facebook and Twitter this kind of internet community, so should we consider those sources as qualitative studies?

Sometimes people will take the ideas from the internet which means it is not their own idea. Katherine Morton Robinson has asked about that

‘Questions about confidentiality and informed consent must be answered. Should the researcher make an effort to contact an individual who has posted on a public bulletin board to obtain informed consent? Is it possible for the researcher to do so?’ (Robinson, 2001)

If we need to collect information from the others, we should get permission from the owners. If not, we are just plagiarism.

One of the key difficulties that Internet research raises is the issue of privacy and how to balance the needs of the research with that of the research subjects. (Berry, 2004) Both of them thought those internet sources are not ethical as there was no privacy on the internet. As everyone can use internet, it should not be count at qualitative studies too.

However, I think some of them are ethical and useful. Facebook, Twitter, Wiki, we all know they are not reliable and must not use them for research. Duplicates like books, articles and journals can be used for our research. As they are the copy from first hand source. To conclude, we should be careful when choosing internet source for our research.

Reference:

Robinson, K.M. (2001), Unsolicited Narratives from the Internet: A Rich Source of Qualitative Data, Qual Health Res 2001 11: 706 DOI: 10.1177/104973201129119398

Berry, D.M. (2004), Internet research: privacy, ethics and alienation: an open source approach, Internet Research; 2004; 14, 4; ABI/INFORM Global

Parametric and nonparametric test

Parametric test always use for assuming the data which come from a type of probability distribution and make inferences about parameters of the distribution. It is quite well-known in statistics. Examples like t-test and ANOVA. Also, there are nonparametric tests like chi-square, Mann-Whitney test. Nonparametric test does not involve the use of any population parameters or precise distribution assumptions. Fisher and van Belle (1993, p. 306): A family of probability distributions is nonparametric if the distributions of the family cannot be conveniently characterized by a few parameters. [For example, all possible continuous distributions.] Statistical procedures that hold or are valid for a nonparametric family of distributions are called nonparametric statistical procedures.

However, we may sometimes feel confuse about which test should be use. For example, when there is a test for 2 groups and independent measures, so we should choose t-test or Mann-Whitney test (Analogous to t test for two independent groups, work with ranks rather than raw scores)? Actually there are some ways which can easy to choose the right one. Parametric tests always underlie normal distribution which allow for more conclusion. They present interval or ratio data. The population of DV scores normally distributed or there is homogeneity of variance. Nonparametric test always present nominal or ordinal data. There should be one or more of the above assumptions violated, example like don’t assume population parameters or don’t require normal distribution of scores. However, nonparametric tests are less powerful than parametric tests. They are less likely to reject the null hypothesis when it is false. When the assumptions of parametric tests can be met, parametric tests should be used as they are the most powerful test available.

Although nonparametric tests are less powerful, why people still need to use them? Nonparametric test can make less stringent demands of the data. As standard parametric procedures to be valid, it should underlying conditions or assumptions must be met, particularly for smaller sample size. If assumptions and conditions are violated, the p-values and confidence intervals may not be trustworthy. Nonparametric procedures can sometimes be used to get a quick answer with little calculation. Two nonparametric procedures are the sign test (use with paired data to test the hypothesis that differences are equally likely to be positive or negative) and median test (use to test whether two samples are drawn from population with the same median) (Dallal, 2000).

We always need to find the most suitable test for doing research. Depends on situation or environment, parametric or nonparametric test may use. We can draw more conclusions by using parametric test, but non-parametric is simplicity and less affected by outliers. We still have many tests to learn in our future.

Week 12 Blog: Design Critique & Science in Media

The journal I read was ‘Biological components of sex differences in color preference’. The title of this journal article cannot accurate give the study design and findings. As the title said ‘Biological components’, it seems didn’t related to the design of this study. The design of this journal article is basically focus on choosing in eight colours (color-picking) by the participants. Although the design stated that participants included male and female, British Caucasian and Han Chinese, the design cannot showed it can related to biological. Choosing colours by different sex or racial was just a simple test and not based on biological. For the findings, the article just related it a little bit. The result showed it is significance that there is sex differences in color preference between males and females, also for cultural differences within the evolution of sex-specific behavioural use of trichromacy. However, the article cannot showed the findings directly.

The explanations of the finding actually is well justified. As researchers stated that it is significance between each sex in color preference. First, they relied on the result which they got in the test which two tables had showed in this article to support there are different for Male, Female, UK participants and China participants. Some points which the researchers want to support their findings is not good enough. They had found information like hunter-gatherer theory to support female and male had different preference on color and things (yellow fruit, red leaves). They can prove the ‘female brain’ hypotheses from the Bem Sex Role. Moreover, they found a good explanation like innate which human choose color by their own feeling. As environment can affected people’s preference too. The example like Chinese people may strong in red colour because the culture in China, red colour means ‘good luck’, so forever male or female in China may have strong feeling in red colour. Chinese people would prefer choose red in the test.

The news report and headline imply that all boys prefer blue and all girls prefer pink is because the historical reason. As the headline said ‘At last, science discovers why blue is for boys but girls really do prefer pink’, it imply that people already knew boys prefer blue and girls prefer pink before the research and experiments. As the news report had indicated that humans’ colour preference was belong to hunter-gatherer. It was also related to environment like sky colour and fruit colour. It is not warranted by the study which was described because the study is not concentrate on did hunter-gatherer make an effect on human colour preference nowadays. The study just pointed out difference between sex and cultural. As hunter-gatherer still cannot prove it is significance in human now.